I didn't buy my Macbook to "feel special". I bought it because Windows sucks.
Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
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Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't the Indy $15,000? Even accounting for Moore's Law it would have been hard for SGI to go mainstream.
Contemporary fully-loaded Macs were comparable.
I don't know about that, but even so, making the cheapest SGI comparable to the most expensive Mac wasn't a recipe for mainstream success.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#23A company can't give off that aura when their products sell 100s of millions. Apple maintained it for longer than anyone else ever did though.
Did they ever really have that aura? I mean, I'm a Mac fanboy. I've argued with you about Apple a thousand bajillion times on this site. I watch the keynote. But I never got into it because it was a cult thing. I got into it because every blog I liked reading took some time to talk about loving Apple (Shaun Blanc, John Gruber, John Welsh, even Paul Graham), and so I took some time out to try the computers and I really loved them, and still do. When I argue Windows with friends, it's usually because they make the argument that a Mac is not inherently better than a PC, and I happen to disagree. There's nothing pretentious about that, it's just an argument that happens.
Somewhere along the line it got decided that there's a fashion statement being made with Macs. I don't really see that. I think a certain type of person that's obsessed with aesthetic does like Apple, because it's clean, but was there ever a feeling that using Apple products made a person special? Because I've never noticed that, and yet it's brought up and constantly mocked. I don't get it.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#24Honestly, who cares? Why are so many inane articles submitted to HN?
I'm not saying this is why this was submitted, but some people do it because you can't lose karma with submissions, and because articles that'll spark controversy will attract people who upvote the article much more quickly.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#25Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#26The point is valid, the "signs" to back it up are tenuous and the attempts at humour lame. While I don't disagree with the author's premise the article probably isn't worth your time reading.
Here's a question that isn't addressed: does being special matter? I thought the point of capitalism and competition was how good products were, not how special you felt using them.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of those people, including poor people, pony up an extra $300 because they consider the value of the mac to be, say, $1000 higher. If you spend 1000 hours a year using a computer, and a mac is 50 cents an hour nicer to use, that's $500 per year. Whatever you think of the mac experience, some people do find it significantly nicer, so for them it's worth buying. Also, Macs don't necessarily always cost more.
There are also plenty of people happy to be typing their essays in Microsoft Word for the Mac, rather than Microsoft Word for the PC.
I've used Word on both, and Word on Mac is better. It's not particularly good, but it's got a lot going for it - namely, a de-emphasis on over-the-top menus for sidebars - and it takes advantage of a lot of the neat Mac stuff that Windows can't do. It's still really ugly, especially compared to Pages, but it's better.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#28Owning a mac is still a cultural statement, like an Obama bumper sticker or worrying loudly about Global Warming in public. I even know poor humanities graduate students to pony up the extra $300 for a mac, because that's what they are supposed to own. Macs are common possessions of workers of DC non-profits, despite their meager salaries. It's a token that proclaims yourself to be part of the well-educated, hip, coo…
That's all very "maybe" though you might be correct. The test will come when the uberHip Jobs steps down and some accountant takes his place. I really dislike OSX and the only good thing about it is its Unix roots. Well...why pay a premium for Unix which should be cheaper than Windows?
Why...? Well, it is just branding, as far as I can see. It's not 300 dollars, either. It's sometimes 600 dollars for a PC vs. 1299 for an equivilent Mac. To me, that's stupid. If you don't like Windows, well, this will add $0.00 onto your price:
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#29I didn't buy my Macbook to "feel special". I bought it because Windows sucks.
I wish I could buy ThinkPad with Mac OS X.
Re: Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special
#30Honestly, who cares? Why are so many inane articles submitted to HN?
(original submitter here)
I care. I care about end-user personal computing trends.
They a) amuse me and b) affect my income. That's why I submitted, to see discussion on a topic I am interested in.
Quoting from http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site."