Apple fights back against Microsoft adverts

... that you have to buy the software and subscriptions. Is Apple not doing this?

Why should we pay for QuickTime Plus? How about some "iLife" program suite? Isn't that all pretty much bundled in free with Vista/7? Why be proprietary and allow other mobile devices to be accessed in iTunes?

/facepalm

Have these people never heard of free AV software from companies like Grisoft or free malaware programs? I can see the Apple faithful paying the Geek Squad loads of $$$$ because they pay Apple loads of $$$$ for stuff that should be free.

Every time these Apple fanbots open their mouths they show extreme ignorance to real life and the computer market.

Apple's overpriced hardware will make their market share continue to drop. IMO Windows 7 and Linux armed with sub $800.00 PC's will stomp Apple in the next few years. In the US, our economy is bad and we will not pay Apple's luxury tax for the same hardware we can get for less.

I figure that once the messiah Job's completely leaves the temple for good then Apple will do the following:

1. Lower the price
2. Make a mid-range Apple tower.

or without the sly smug-

3. Open OSX to general hardware.

Let's face it PC's are becoming cheaper and cheaper and this trend will kill Apple. Without the ipod Apple would have been forced to change years ago.

LOL I'm typing this on a 24in iMac! DOH! I'm just one of those people that like the iMac's limited space design so I'm one that will by one even if OSX is released in the wild. So don't flame me fanbots!

All anecdotal but. . .
Ok so I have 8 computers in my house, 5 are mac's and 3 are PC's. The only PC that is used regularly my girlfriend's dell laptop is now dead - shut down accidentally during an Microsoft "update" a few days ago and now is a brick.
The others were rendered useless when I could run any "necessary" windows apps on my macs.
The PC is faster at somethings and slower at others, windows does somethings well and OS X does something well. But there is NO viruses on the Mac and you can do anything you want and never worry. The PC's all need virus software that slows many things down and still occasionally get problems that need to be fixed.
Overall the Mac's are more powerful, more consistent user interface and more fun.
The kids won't use PC's.
The average life of PC's is about a third of a Mac (all my mac's going back to 2000 are still in use today where as I have a closet full of PC's some as little as 3 years old that are boat anchors.
Overall in terms of value I would have to rate the Mac's as higher than PC's.

http://www.kpbonline.com/

Wow - only one apple fanboi trying to defend Apple's overpriced e-mail/browser wantabe paperweights. (very pretty plastic is still plastic) Times are tough - Thanks for the great articles Nick - I like to see the fanbois squeal!!!!

When Apple fanbots say,"now my PC is dead" I just write them off.

You might want to check under the hood of that Mac. What you will find will be heresy of the highest offense via Apple dogma!

Kinda strange our PII Dell notebook is still kicking and running Windows 2000 fine.

These Apple fanbots don't come here to have a real discussion. They just post comments from their Apple cue sheets thus doing the work of the Apple Temple!

Wake up and do some friggin research before posting pls.

Apple is a good product, but I will say that PC's are way more powerful then what is offered by Apple. Mind you PC's that run windows software tend to have fat bloated software that requires more performance just to do the same thing Mac OSX can do with less "Required" performance. So when it comes to user experience they are about the same.

This being said you can generally buy two PC's for what it costs for one mac so doing a bit of math if the average life of a PC is 4 years and mac are 8 years it comes out to the same thing in costs but with PC's you get more recent technology once your on the second PC purchase and by then the PC is kicking Mac's butt in performance.

Personally thinking that you "never" need to worry about malaware and viruses on Mac's is a very bad thing. I recently read (http://defense-in-depth.blogspot.com/2009/01/iwork-2009-trojan-building-botnet.html) about a botnet created with people downloading a full fledged iWork 2009.

In this case iWork was complete, you wouldn't even notice that there is something wrong. I've been in the computer security feild for a while now and really 90%+ of the infections are caused by end users. Mac users tend to be less technical then PC users and if PC users are dumb enough to open the "Click me I'm a virus" messages then Mac users are even more likely to do so.

All this being said I do think that Mac's are a better product then Windows PC but unfortunately I won't get a Mac until I can A) Choose the CPU I want (in my case AMD) B) Choose the ODM vendors I trust (All OEM's put out contracts to the cheapess out there, Apple is no different. I don't want fly by night ODM's to build my hardware)

The moment that Steve Jobs leaves Apple or more then likely die (even when someone like that leaves they still influence the company, look at Bill Gates) and they start to do the smart thing and let people choose the hardware they want, then I will be getting Mac OS.

I have a P133-MMX laptop maxed out at 80MB of RAM with a 2GB hard disk drive. It's going on 10+ years old and it still works. It used to run Windows 85, but I put a stripped Linux install on it 5 years or so ago. I have to use an old PCMCIA Xircom 10MB Ethernet card to get on a network (I had a first generation, unlabeled Aironet WiFi 802.11b card for a while).
It doesn't even do anything that useful any more. I once tried to put Gentoo on it, but gave up since it would literally take days for it to install.
I tried BeOS on it, but didn't have any video drivers. Same with OS/2 Warp 4 (which was too big to install all the extras anyway).
The point is that this little ThinkPad is super old and still works.
It's a PC.

Justify Apple price is as easy as justifying the price of a pair of Prada shoes.

Stop whining. Some people like Mac, and the rest like PC's...who cares? Most of you sound VERY bitter. Also, maybe pay less care to your PC facts and a little more towards your grammar...."than" vs. "then" in particular.

let em rip....

How is a fall in growth a "slump"? It's still growth. Or are you using a radix other than zero to determine negativity?

nick makes 30k a year writing shit about apple and charlie another 30k doing the same for nvidia.

Actually reading nicks rants for the last year made me buy a macintosh, even after years of using windows PC's. Thanks Nick for putting me in touch with OSX its a fine OS.

"Actually reading nicks rants for the last year made me buy a macintosh"

Are you serious, lol?

To me Macs are overpriced and not suited to what I want. I want performance per pound, ability to game and be able to use any software I want. This means it's going to be a mid-range spec of hardware plus Windows OS.

Macs - I can't spec it myself, and that's only beacuse Apple don't sell their OS on it's own.

Mac Fanbois, would you still be raving about Mac's if the OS was available for £100?

A lot of "look-at-me" types buy Macs. And clueless people.

But to me an iPod is either for old people who cannot work an mp3 player, or for sheep of my own generation who 1: cannot work tech,
2: just want something that does it all, easily (see 1).

I think we read too much into this at times, it's the old North v South, Us v Them, etc.

Saying only the PC user needs to buy additional software leads me to belive the apple guy never listened to the complaints about iMovie when it change and the limitations to DVD burning on the MAC as well.

Guess that's why Toast, Final Cut Express, Office, and Adobe only sell a ton of copies to these apple owners who have all they need.

For the people who simply want to raw cut/paste/trim edit photos and videos, the included software of both MAC and M$ will do the trick, and for the other items for M$, as mentioned, there's a ton of free downloads to do the job just fine like AVG & AVAST for security, GIMP for photo editing and Audacity or GoldWave for free audio editing.
For video editing the plug-ins for MovieMaker make it equally as bland as iMovie. SO the point is pretty much a red herring about cost of software.

BTW, of course Apple never charges you for things that should be free, just ask us early iPod touch adopters who were asked to pay $20 for apps that should've shipped with it, and you also had to pay for the 2.0 firmware update.

The difference is when Apple's the market leader, that's when they'll exercise their monopolistic control to make you pay for things that usually come for free, and with their closed eco-system don't expect open-source or freeware solutions if Apple doesn't approve.

I know this is supposed to be a rant, but when you mindlessly throw out statistics to help bolster some pre-conceived notion you have, it is rather hollow and lacking in professionalism.

You mention a "drop" in growth from 33% to 8%... yet no mention of how this compares to the overall PC market for that time span (how about an actual #?) You mention a projected drop of 1.1% expected but and again some vague reference that this is worse then the industry projection, but again no # or actual LINK is given.

Much like Charlie with Nvidia, even if you are telling the truth noone will know, as you have such a bias against Apple that there's no way of knowing what you are making up.

Does the INQ actually pay you for this crap or do you do it just to 'fight the good fight' against Apple. You seem to resent that they are successful - if you don't like the products don't buy them and move on.

The reason Mr "I've got 5 Mac's" has GOT 5 MACS is because they cost him a fortune and he can't bear to part with them.

Most normal people upgrade their IBM compatible PC's every year or two and give/throw their old PC away because it didn't cost them all that much to begin with.

A new Macbook is on my Christmas list for this year. After using OS X for several years I grew to love it. From it's universal built in spell checker and dictionary that can be used in almost any application like this box I am typing in right now to the simplistic yet highly functional layout of the OS in general. Then there is file vault that works great, you can have in Windows if you pay the MS premium for Windows Ultimate, what a load of BS. OS X is a much better experience than Windows. It's worth it to me and the new Nvidia DDR3 based Macbooks are dead sexy.

In 2006 I bought a Toshiba core 2 duo w/ 15.4" screen for $499 from Best Buy. I upgraded the ram to 2gigs for about $20. Later I got a free extra battery from Toshiba.

I bought it to take notes at school, web/email, and ms office.

Now my wife uses it for web/ email and recipe software (which by the way does not run on Leo)

What does the mac do for an extra $600? (2006 pricing)

Despite mac fans claiming otherwise, I find it difficult to believe if I had spent the extra money on a Macbook that it would have depreciated less in the last 3 years.

You got enough $ to afford a Mac instead of a regular PC? Good for you. Just don't come here to justify your OS choice. Thing is you pay a lot more $ for the same hardware by buying a Mac instead of a PC, so what you are really buying is the OS. Now think with me for a second... is your OS $500 better than Windows or $600+ better than Linux? I hope you think so because you already made that choice.

Microsoft is a can of worms, Apple is a different can of different worms, and Linux is...well, you guessed it, a different can of worms.

NOW

Are you telling me your can of worms is BETTER than my can of worms?

You must be joking.

We're in a recession. That is an unavoidable truth that only rich fanboys can pretend to ignore. The rest of us who aren't rich aren't going to pay the Apple tax. Apple is using PC technology inside of fancy case designs that they are overcharging for. Netbooks are the rage in the marketplace. Apple can ignore that if they want to, but watch as their sales and growth continues to fall while inexpensive PC sales increase. It's just math and reality.

I am a Linux fanboi, so I feel neutral in this. I do think that PC users have been taking it up the xxx and happily so for years from Microsoft and Windows and that they owe all the good things that are happening to the competition that Windows has had from Apple. So being smug about some Microsoft Adverts is stupid.

You will need Apple tomorrow and the day after that otherwise you'd still be stuck with msdos because MS have never done anything innovative without being pushed.

I find the smugness of some Apple uses annoying but at least they are paying for the development of ideas that Windows users will get 5 years later.

I find that people with macs don't tend to ever need my help - it's always Windows users who have problems for me to fix. I think that Apple machines are worth what you pay for in comparison to a Windows PC.

Claiming Macs are more secure than PCs because they get fewer viruses is flawed logic; frankly, it's more correlation than causation. Viruses (at least the really nasty ones) are written to attack servers to gain information or just to be malicious. How many Apple servers are out there? Maybe 1%? If that? (If anyone has real numbers please link... I couldn't find any other than it was in the 1% range) Attacks on home users tend to be for zombie farms... again, what's the market share for home use? About 8%. If someone is going to make a software tool to hack a computer, why on earth would they bother with a Mac?
So that at the very least deflates the security argument.
Now for price. There have been some reports that allege Macs are pricier, some that prices are equal. Here's the truth: the only new Mac you can buy that's less than 1k$US is the basic Mac mini, and it doesn't come with a screen, keyboard, or a mouse... for $600. There are a huge variety of PCs to choose from (with all the necessary accessories to make them work) for about $500-600. For the 1k-1.5k range, Macs and PCs are relatively equal: lots of choices, some of them overpriced, some of them a good deal. For more than about 1.5k-2k, every retailer rips you off, and you should just buy the parts and build your own... but wait! you can't do that with a Mac. My point exactly.
Let's not dredge up old numbers about how the iMac was so wonderful or how the HP made a great box back in 1990-whatever. No one cares. It no longer matters. This is about the companies now.
Let's review: Macs are generally overpriced, though that doesn't mean you can't get a good deal if you look hard. Macs are not harder to hack, it's just that (still) no one really bothers. PCs have a lot of software available to them, but that doesn't make the software generally more expensive. It only means that there is more of a variety of expensive software (and free software) to choose from.

In reference to the price of Antivirus: "That's $150 over the three years Lauren is likely to hold on to her PC"
Three years? THREE years!? That's where I've been going wrong all this time - upgrading as prices come down! And I'm not just talking RAM - I mean the works! Hell, the only original thing is the case!
No wonder I'm not on the true path of apple, my computers don't need replacing "after three years"

Yep, really do and still read all his articles =)
He's basically bashing apple just to get clicks, he does nowhere state facts, just opinions, and followers from left to right jump onto the topic like a hungry wolf onto some bones...

Yep, apples prices are too high. Yep, the Value of a Mac (and the quality of manufacture) are higher. Yep, I would want to be able to buy a Mac at a affordable price with a nice Core 2 Quad Config and a MidiTowerCase for less than 2 gran to replace my aging mac (G5) and PC (Core2Duo ASRock).

But why the hell all the hatred and fanboism on either side??? Ain't got anything more useful to do?

Someone Special:

you make a good point. how can one be better than another? they are just different. what you didn't mention is the massive difference in price between the cans. my can of worms does almost everything another can of worms does (it opens! it contains worms!), but, my can only cost 50p, whereas the other can costs £1. i'd be a fool to spend 50p more than i needed to (unless i needed to, in which case i'd be.. er, not a fool!?)
so people, if you need to use mac exclusive worms then get a mac. or, if you have enough money to be able to not miss that extra 50p, and you want a mac, then get one. unfortunately i don't know what that is like, as i don't need a mac and besides, i'm attached to jimmy hill's face and as such do not have much of a say in these matters.

anyway, my point is if you don't need to then don't buy the whole apple, just buy the worm!

Mac VS PC. i don't know where to begin. I like Apple but will probably never buy one. Its Simple Economics, i have a PC built with the latest parts, x-58 motherboard, Quad core, 2 x gtx 285-SLi, lian-li Full tower, logitech z-5500, 28" monitor, 6gb ddr 3 ram, etc, etc; This whole setup cost me just a bit over 2300USD. Now just for fun i made a Comparable Mac on apples website (please try it your self if you do not believe me)and the Mac setup cost around 11k? How? Why? i have no idea. The mac had less graphing power, smaller power supply, smaller storage, so what gives? Simply put i do not understand it, i have vast knowledge of electronics (worked for segate, medtronics)but justifying a premium that is above and beyond average is ridiculous and unjust to the consumer. i have always used a PC in my home and have never gotten a Trojan/Virus; it all depends on the end users since i have also seen some very bad mac users, i have some well built amd's from the 2000 era which still work flawlessly. If i was in a market for "Cheap stuff" (300-600$)then i would definitely consider buying a Mac or a Dell, where performance for the bang shouldn't matter much, but for 2300k you can get an extremely fast PC and a pretty average packed Mac. i Run mathematica, Adobe, matlab, and offcoase a lot of games all day long and my PC never crashes, no blue screens, nothing at all, btw i run multiple Os, Vista ultimate 64-bit, Windows-xp 64 bit, and OSX, without paying that extra premium.

People who get virus and trojans on Windows PC are those who frequent dirty sex web sites ,or places with "unlocked" movies, games or software without to pay.

People who buys Mac are sexual obbessed and software pirats but looking for a good protection.

What else ?

Crooks cause damage where there is not only opportunity but also money. Opportunity alone is not enough. There's no need to protect a Mac anymore than it was to worry about whether your AMC Gremlin was going to be stolen. Nobody stole AMC cars and nobody hacks Macs.

"In a desperate attempt ..." LMFAO. Sheer hyperbole! I doubt you should be writing for anyone but Microsoft.

Hmm. Now that Microsoft have shown a big drop in profits and Apple a rather large increase maybe it should be the other way around.

Still, carry on with your M$, APPL wars. It makes us outsiders chuckle to watch the the M$ Fanboyz spout abusive and ill informed garbage and the Mac Fanboyz preaching from their holier than thou hilltops.

And by Fanboyz I don't mean to leave out Fangurls! 8)

"Ok so I have 8 computers in my house, 5 are mac's and 3 are PC's. The only PC that is used regularly my girlfriend's dell laptop is now dead - shut down accidentally during an Microsoft "update" a few days ago and now is a brick. "

Ever hear of that Reinstall windows cd each dell has included? (only a brick because you can't put a cd in)

only reason you have boat anchors in your closet is you can't put a CD in them most likely!