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re FW-less Macs
Maybe the resident engineers can enlighten me: my understanding is that Mac "target disk" operation currently depends on a FW connection between computers.
Does/could USB 2.0 provide target disk mode, and if not, does that mean the new non-FW Macs won't be able to take advantage of Apple's clever trick of transfering files/users/preferences from an old (target disk) Mac?
Tex, re bottom fishing...
Since ace appeared uncharacteristically prematurely, I was going to suggest you wait for a confirmation when roni announces a buy -- but I see lango & WLD have pre-empted my advice. :)
(I may buy calls if there's another dip and it seems anomolous, depending on the timing, but except for selling 20% at 165 in July, I've just been staring into headlights.)
Actually, it's one of them laser printers.
Tex, re ADBE's business
"For my part, I've never claimed... confidence in ADBE's products, but assuming they form a plausible business"
Ah, Postscript, pdf...? :)
Lango, re posting frequency --HUH?
"If you check, you'll find that you've gotten it precisely backwards -- my monthly postings here are at a four month low, not four month high."
Assuming my aging memory must really be failing, I did just that. Checking back to before AAPL's descent, I see for this board:
only 2 posts for you in all of December, 8 in November, 33 in October...
In contrast, you made 9 here just yesterday alone (and about 40 so far this month).
Jim & Multiplan
You can tell your cousin: a year or so ago, I couldn't find a calculator to do some work while overseeing in a student lab, and the thought occurred to me that I had a working MacPlus hiding under my desk, and a System/Multiplan floppy to put into service. (It worked fine; at age 20+, the combo is still a pretty high-end "scientific calculator," after all.)
Needless to say, I relished the reaction of the students, many of whom were probably younger than the Mac and Multiplan.
Jim, re versions of Word
I still keep a copy of Word5.1a handy and use it while I can (in Classic on a Cube at home and a G5 iMac at work), for a number of documents that I don't have to share with anyone else.
Unfortunately, I'm also in charge of maintaining various manuals etc. at work that get passed around, which are in a ("modern," "standard") .doc format. I'm in the middle of a 100 page course text right now -- a rather simple aggregation of text and diagrams really -- and once again I'm amazed at how painful Word is these days. (Save a .doc out of Word X/2000 for Mac at home, open it into Word 2004 Mac at Work, and all kinds of font & pagination nightmares appear, for example. Or, God forbid, open a document from someone else with diagrams done in Word's "Drawing" module.) I can't imagine using current Word for real technical work.
Two aspects of this Word degadation puzzle me:
- I've always found Excel to be fairly useful and sensible, and even improved from version to version. How can it come from the same factory that that produces Word?
- It seems that (outside of internet and multimedia applications, of course) there was somewhat of a software golden age around the early 1990's. Programs like Word5.1 and the later versions of the MacDraw lineage (and even HyperCard, with its HyperTalk programming language) were affordable, small, and simple, yet plenty powerful for general work. What happened? (What is there for general purpose diagramming/drawing nowadays, for example?)
MSFT & AAPL performance
What you say is true -- if you start far enough back in time, then MSFT is always above AAPL as you look forward.
My question looks backwards from today. Basically I'm asking if someone had bought MSFT and AAPL at some time T and still owned both, for what values of T would MSFT be the better investment?
You pointed out in your previous post that for T = about 6 months ago, MSFT would have outperformed. What I find somewhat surprising is that before 6 months ago, you'd have to go back to beyond almost 15 years ago for this to be true.
(It's easy to think of AAPL as a rather recent star, forgetting that AAPL is about 50 times where it was a decade ago, and well above its peak at the 2000 bubble, while MSFT is about half what it was at the bubble, and barely ahead of inflation for nearly a decade.)
Time period over which MSFT has outperformed AAPL
"MSFT has outperformed AAPL over the past six months"
A novelty!
(So here's a trivia question: beyond the recent 6 months or so, how far back in time would one have to go in order for MSFT to have outperformed AAPL from then until now?)
Apple guidance and the "rational" market.
From a response to a Fortune column:
http://bigtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/01/24/apple-could-shock-the-naysayers/?source=yahoo_quote
"Analysts had wild ideas about the Q2 forecast: $1.09 per share. When Apple announced $ 0.94 profit forecast per share they all said Apple guided lower and the stock price went down.
Well, I did the math on the Q1 forecasts and results and the Q2 forecasts, both for 2008 and 2007. It turned out Apple hasn’t guided lower at all!
...Profits were 1.14 per share in Q1 2007 and Apple predicted between 0.54 and 0.56 for Q2, that’s 48% of Q1.
Now, for 2008, ... profits were 1.76 per share in Q1, predictions are 0.94 in Q2, that’s 53% of Q1..."
Adding to that: current Q2 guidance is 70% higher than last year's while the stock price is only up about 50% from a year ago. So Q2 guidance per se can't be blamed for the stock plunge; the lower P/E must be based on a reduced expectation of longer term growth.
But at Apple particularly, future growth is a more complicated, less predictable matter than one quarter's guidance. A year ago there was hope in the newly-announced iPhone, now there's the perception of substantially increasing Mac market share, etc. Were/are these hopes actually quantifiable, and is this year's a lesser promise? For the moment, the market has spoken loudly -- perhaps a bit too loudly,
Tex: iMacs already have a 1TB drive option
"Apple is going to be buying 1TB drives for its XServes, its MacPros, and probably a future version of iMac (editing video? Surely, the 1TB is coming)"
The standard Apple BTO choices for the 24" iMac are 500GB, 750 GB and 1 TB.
I was surprised by that last fall, when my college-student photographer daughter bought an iMac. (What also surprised me was how close a high-end BTO iMac's performance specs were to those of a much more expensive, low-end MacPro tower.)
Re; aTV, Netflix & getting video gratification right.
As a Canuck, I've had no direct experience with Netflix. (Similar services available here seem attractive to me -- though less so for the last couple of years that my household has been displayless.)
However, I witnessed a glitch in the DVD-by-mail model this December when we were visiting my daughter in Manhattan for a week over Christmas, and a couple of movies she had specially ordered to watch with the reassembled family never did arrive from Netflix. (Granted, Christmas is an extreme for postal congestion, but it may also be a prime viewing season.) The solution was going to be just using the streaming alternative from Netflix, but my computer geek son-in-law tried to get that working for an hour or so and finally gave up.
So, I came away thinking there might be a market for internet delivery AND a simple, just-works interface. (I have no idea if Apple's offering succeeds in this regard.)
yofal: would you rather something in the air
is referring to the new liquid-air cooled 16 processor double-wide PowerMac?
Re: iTunes returns may seem slim for Byrne
He's a relatively big name in pop music, and as such can compare iTunes with a contract at a big-time music label where he claims he gets 10% of retail price (after expenses). For a beginning or niche performer the comparison might be quite different.
But, as Byrne points out, music comes in many forms. For example: my wife sings in a high-end non-profit choir, which over a couple of decades has recorded a half-dozen albums. (These were done through a small label, and the choir has copyright.) The CD's are well produced, and as choirs go the group is well known internationally, but contemporary choral music is a rather small pond, so traditionally their CD's were only carried at a few record stores (and sold at gigs). Last year, my wife looked into getting their music on iTunes, and it surprised me that:
a) the process, through one of the big intermediary companies, was dead easy and cost next to nothing (about $35 per CD, one-time charge), and
b) Apple indeed takes about 30 cents out of a 99 cent sale, but the intermediary only takes about 10% or the remainder, so the self-produced artist gets about 60% of each retail sale!
(And this is with distribution on every iTunes store worldwide: in the first month, my wife's choir had sales in Tampa and New Zealand.)
So for lots of non-mainstream groups that record on a laptop and retain copyright, iTunes may offer a pretty attractive extreme on Byrne's range of choices.
no cable -- what, there are 3 of us? em
Port-A-Mac
A very lean & light stripped down Mac might not be what everybody would want, but I'd guess there's a substantial niche market for it.
I have one computer scientist friend who frequently travels with computer and uses a small Mac notebook both at home (as a CPU, with a large screen, keyboard, external HD, etc) and on the road. More convenient and cost-effective than maintaining both a desktop and a notebook, this is the ideal set-up for him. (In fact, he held off upgrading to the current Mac line for quite a while because he longed for a return of a high-end 12" PowerBook.) I'm sure there are many others like him.
re 10 million dollar BRST joke
To me, something doesn't add up in your logic: if BRST believed they were holding Tivo-toppling patents, then why would they have offered to share them with Apple (while letting Apple off the hook for patent infringement) for a mere $10 million?
Annie, re freeMac
So... could you describe again, in detail, exactly how Laura & Ralph bought a new Mac on your credit card?
(Sending this via my aging Cube, though not really complaining. A long time AAPL owner myself, I was lucky enough to plunk nearly all my art school daughter's savings into AAPL at $155.25 in the recent dip -- timed nicely with a relative peak in the $Canuck -- based on a strategy we'd discussed a year or more ago. I inform her that in two weeks she's up more than the cost of the fully loaded iMac 24" she got in Sept. She points out she's not "up" anything, since she hasn't sold yet. Not so dumb, them artists!)
As for my APPL purchase timing, I again thank the collective chirping of the posters on this board -- along with a "buy what you know" advantage. (I've sure enough owned clunkers, buying what I didn't know!) Having made main acquisitions of APPL at $3 (adjusted) at the very end of Dec. 97, then at $6.50 (adjusted) just before the iTunes store and after an analyst "Apple is toast" opinion in 2003, I only wish for the same instincts/luck in selling. So far, though, that hasn't presented a real problem with AAPL.
re QT movie problem
A month or two ago, after I Software Updated QT (7.2->7.3 I think), QT movies in Safari would play only as audio. (I tried this with many videos, including for example Apple's movie trailers.) I was curious enough to chase after the problem a little and discovered:
-the same QT web videos played fine in Firefox
-if I loaded a pictureless "video" with Safari then saved it to disk (with QT Pro), not only was the saved copy fine, but a subsequent attempt to play the web video in Safari also worked fine.
This happened on my G4 Cube, and the whole scenario repeated when I upgraded a G4 tower -- both with OS X 10.4. I shrugged the problem off, figuring I wouldn't be the only victim, and that Apple would notice the screw-up and fix it in the next OS/Safari/QT iteration. When the problem persisted through the next upgrade package, I Googled ("Safari QuickTime video problem" or the like) and found that deleting a particular file and restarting Safari cured the problem. (I think the file was Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime Plugin.plugin)
Candy apples
"I think it's just a frustration that any Apple energy gets spent on negative eye candy"
Frustrating to "serious" users, perhaps, but more often than not sweet in the eyes of an investor.
"After watching the wife and kids and kid's friends go kinda goo-goo-gaa-gaa..."
The candy's not just for "women and children," either. I remember being in a Mac store a couple of decades ago and witnessing a group of four or five DOS-ey, stiff-looking business suits being shown the new Mac (II?). They appeared pretty indifferent at best until the sales person triggered the then-revolutionary "O-Shit" alert sound. Eyes lit up, smiles all around -- and sale in the bag, I suspect.
disabling Spotlight?
What manner of disabling were you thinking of?
I've never noticed a way to turn off Spotlight, and can't find one with a bit of hunting around. Is there a simple setting to do this? (A "preference" toggle on/off? Do/don't index?)
Classic on G5
runs fine on my last-of-the-G5's iMac at work. Maybe you're thinking it can't actually boot up into OS9, which is correct.
I still use a few HyperCard stacks I wrote ages ago -- for example, to manage student's grades. (Unlike lots of other grade-book software available, my program does what I want, the way I want it. As a bonus, I have the nostalgic enjoyment of honoring Bill Atkinson each time I run it.)
OT: to travelling roni
North to Vancouver, no? I'll wave if we pass on I5, as I drive down to sunny Yamhill this weekend to pick up my annual allotment of vinifera -- this year, pinot gris.
(I'm counting on AAPL to sit still while I'm on the road Saturday and Sunday.)
hey Annie, re keyboard
The (wired) keyboard that arrived ten days ago with my daughter's new iMac has no smell. Even with one's nose to the keys, there's nothing noticeable -- no new plastic, no new electronics, nor any other odd bouquet.
Filling iMac orders
"anyone know if Apple's online or physical stores are actually filling orders?"
At Apple online (Ed., Canada), I ordered an iMac 24" 2.8/750GB config on Aug 26. At the time of the order, Apple estimated shipping by Sep 4-6 and delivery by Sep 12-18 (that is, within about 3 weeks).
iMac actually shipped: Sep 3 -- 8 days after the order.
Fed Ex actually delivered: morning of Sep 6 -- 11 days after the order.
So, at least with that online order, all seemed normal .
Possible iPhone feature?
On the one hand, iPods are commonly used as a music source in a home audio system; the iPod in a dock connects to a stereo via a line-in cable, or a cable juts plugs into the iPod's headphone jack.
On the other, a computer/iTunes combo can be used as a source, and this can be done wirelessly from, say, a Mac to an Airport Express plugged into an audio system.
It seems to me a remarkable hybrid of these two methods could (should!) be possible with a wi-fi iPod (or iPhone). The iPod would both contain the content AND deliver it wirelessly, allowing the iPod to function in effect as an incredibly flexible, intelligent, easy to use remote control for the audio system -- finally, a remote for "the rest of us."
(I assume the current generation of Pods & Phones don't incorporate this ability, correct?)
KCMW, re iPod rebate
"try to figure out which UPC they meant - the iPod had one inside, one outside - neither exactly matched the instructions"
If you please... in the end, which "UPC" cut-out did you decide was correct for the iPod?
Having just received the iMac (& iPod), sending in the rebate stuff is high on my to-do list. I saw on the outside of the iPod box (Apple's black box, not the shipping cardboard) a label matching Apple's description of the desired UPC, and I planned to send this. (I presume this is the one you call "outside.") Am I right?
(I hate this rebate crap!)
iMac shipment
On Aug 26 I ordered an iMac 24/2.8/1G/750; it shipped Sep 3 & arrived yesterday AM.
(FedEx Shanghaj->Anchorage->Memphis->Vancouver)
apple bad?
"googling 'apple bad' yields 63 million hits. can we then draw the conclusion Apple is 30 times as bad as Starbucks?"
We might, if only we could trust google; googling "google bad" gives 263 million hits! :)
Showing consumer confidence today...
I just ordered a iMac 24"/2.8GHz for my offspring/scholar. Thanks to fi etc. for the 3rd-party RAM tip.
(Interesting to confirm a universal constant: once again, the final bill for a new Mac was about $3000 CAN -- just what the 128K cost in 1984!)
Also took advantage of the current get-it-with-a-Mac ed. discount for CS3 Design Premium at $399 CAN.
(And, yeah, I'm keeping the almost-free 30G ipod.)
AAPL Up? Down? Who knows?
roni
Bootz: re your newMac
1) Recent iHub advice was to buy the iMac with 1G RAM, then put in 4G third party. Any particular reason(s) you decided to go for the higher-priced Apple RAM? (Convenience? All-in-one warranty for your AIO Mac?)
2) Please report your photo-editor's take on the glossy screen.
Re Ram: thanks fi, dill et al
A question for Professor Fi: do you recommend to your customers that they just buy with Apple's minimum (and obligatory) 1G of RAM, then chuck that 1G (donate it to the ramless?) and add 2 of Micro's 2G modules? Or do you have some kind of clever deal whereby you can give a modest trase-in value on the orphaned 1G?
(I'm asking this mainly out of general interest in retail possibilities, since I'm guessing you don't sell to your neighbors in the Frozen North.)
dilleet: re iMac RAM prices & options
"1 G modules going for about $52.00 now, might as well max it out"
The iMac has 2 Ram slots, so maxing out would require a pair of 2GB modules. Any favorite deals on that RAM?
(At Ed pricing, Apple wants $135 for one 1G module, to upgrade from 1G to 2G total, but it's 4G that really costs: about $630 more for 2 x 2G than for 2 x 1G.)
Bootz: re 0.4 of extra GHz
"Found the iMac I want locally except that it's got a 2.4GHz chip instead of the 2.8. Am I gonna miss the .4 of extra GHz?"
A question I'm also asking, as I'm about to get an upgrade Mac for my photographer/photoshopping daughter.
My take: with other specs (bus, HD, video etc) the same, there won't be a very significant real-task performance difference between 2.4 and 2.8. On the other hand, if the heat is an issue (as some on this board suggest) then conceivably 2.8 could push the system to a critical point that 2.4 would avoid.
I'm similarly debating 2GB vs 4 GB Ram, weighing real performance (mainly Photoshop) gain against cost and heat load. In this respect, I was interested to read the review a couple of days ago (see quote below) in which the author reported no difference between 1 and 2 GB RAM (hmmm...).
BTW: I'm just speculating about a heat issue. I don't know if the extra heat from a 2.8 would matter, or even if there is any real heat problem in the new iMacs. I hear the Al box feels warm, but does this mainly indicate that heat is getting through an Al case better than it used to through plastic? I'd be interested to see specs on CPU output and internal temps, for iMacs old & new.
__________________
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070815/tech_test_imac.html?.v=2
"I tested the middle model, but with an extra gigabyte of memory, which costs $150. When I removed the extra memory, I didn't find a difference in how fast the unit started up, switched between programs or rendered a high-definition movie in iMovie.
That tells me that most users will probably be fine with the cheapest model and the standard 1 GB of memory, because processor speed is not that important anymore. Apple's operating system clearly makes good use of memory; Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista will barely give you the time of day on 1 GB..."
chacun à son iMac
I had a FlowerPower iMac in my office for about 5 years (until about a year and a half ago). Predictably, students often commented on it, but surprisingly the reaction of these (18 - 38 year old range) students was always positive. And they would seem perplexed when I explained that the likely reason they had never encountered an FP was because it had been so unpopular that it was quickly discontinued.
As for me, I got that model simply because it happened to be at the right configuration/price point at the time it was ordered, but I always thought it was rather attractive, not only compared to a beige box, but to other G3 iMacs such as a Tango we had at home. (I also still think the Cube I use at home is the most elegant Mac ever made. And I kind of miss the useful lunch-warmer depression by the original iMac's handle!)
mugur, re call pricing
"it is easier for a call option to go from 5 to 10 cents,basically double,then for a call to go from 2 to 3 dollars"
Hmmm...
I'll leave a theoretical analysis of that thesis to theoreticians like WLD, but I'll offer a check with fast & dirty empirical method I often use:
Look at current quotes for calls with a given expiry, at various strikes. (I'll use Sep Apple calls, for example, because on Yahoo quotes I see a 5¢ and 10¢ pair of bids. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=AAPL&m=2007-09 )
The Sep 210 call is currently bid 10¢ and the 220 5¢; this means that if the underlying stock were to go up by $10 (with other factors such as volatility unchanged), you could expect the 220 to then be worth pretty much what the 210 is now -- i. e. to go from 5¢ to 10¢.
Meanwhile, applying the same logic, the 170 call would go from its current $2.05 bid to what the $160 is now -- i.e., $4.00!
KC: a college student needs a MacBook AND an iPhone :)
Shuffle audiobooks
"We've heard the criticisms here: ...no way to stitch chapters together in the right order in audiobooks"
I'm puzzled by this complaint.
My wife routinely bikes with books:
- CD from public library,
- import whole CD (or multiple CD set) into iTunes playlist (at high compression, since it's just voice), with all the chapters appearing as many iTunes tracks in the original CD order,
- manually drag all the tracks, in original order, onto the Shuffle,
- play whole book, in order, on Shuffle (with the Shuffle's switch set in the "don't shuffle" position, natch!)
Where's the problem?
iPhones swamp Duke U network
(Taken with a grain of salt, from the guy who sustains a blog by finding fault with Apple: http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/07/iphone-mystery-.html )
Any comment from the resident network gurus? If as little as two iPhones can freeze a network, wouldn't this be showing up in airports and coffee shops?