At 06:49 -0700 12/22/08, Paul Stamsen wrote: >Unless you read the whole thing!
Agreed. The last line says: "Disclosure: Long AAPL" Which I first read as "long APPL" the four letter file type for a classic application. I sold 1/4 of my AAPL in Dec 2007 reducing my net cost of what I have left to zero. So I too am biased, but disappointed. The paper seems to ignore the differences between a software company, hardware supplier, and a retailer. The denominator used represents only the software sales while ignoring the free or self-written code. Apple's hardware is pretty good but it seems to be mostly the result of quality supervision of low-wage contract manufacturing. The Woz boxes were different and well made compared to the competition. That's not so true anymore when the real quality is buried inside the chips. Apple uses the same electrolytic capacitors as everyone else and has the same problems that keep my soldering iron hot swapping out caps in SE/30's for tantalum versions. I had a look inside an iphone and was surprised to see numerous small wires connecting the various chip-level parts. There was little in the way of protection of solder joints from flexing or vibration that one would expect in a portable device. Apple's software once was very creative with fundamentally new concepts like resource forks and type/creator codes. Quickdraw was pure innovation. But it was kept secret to the point that it was hard to program for. The new OS neXt came back with Steve who was not allowed to use Apple's inventions in his competing operation and Pixar had found UNIX appropriate for it's graphics. UNIX was becoming freely available compared to its k$ per seat licensing of old. We have lost pretty much all of the Apple inventiveness that created the operating system for the rest of us. Competition from Microsoft was all in marketing technique and they did it better in spite of the utter lack of nice things like resource forks. Registry . . . geezzz. I have been experimenting with the Gtk, the gee tool kit from GNU (stands for "GNU's not UNIX"), which is a programmer's interface to the X11 window system that was part of UNIX since before the Macintosh. Gtk is surprisingly like the API described in the Inside Macintosh volumes of the classic OS. The gnome desktop uses many of the old features in display of what we would call finder windows. There are significant differences between gnome and OS neXt. Gnome uses Linux. OS X uses Free BSD microkernels That's a wash. Gnome uses the same kind of user login that has been in UNIX for years. Apple has a login that attempts to keep you as far away from UNIX as possible. They even hide the common subdirectories /etc, /var, and the like because "you should not need to bother with that". If you have had too much experience you really don't like OS neXt. Linux boxes cost 1/3 as much and all software is free and freely editable. That's hard to beat. Apple's sales depend on supporting mostly less-experienced folks and I think that's the way Steve sees profit. iphone, ipod, Apple TV, itunes: They're all pointed toward entertainment. So I shall keep my Apple stock but I may never upgrade my sawtooth G4. Entertainment, like sex, sells. For business software, productivity, and programming freedom I'm not so sure. Prepared on a G3-upgraded Macintosh 8500 running OS 9.1, Eudora 5.1, and Apple's MPW. -- Applescript syntax is like English spelling: Roughly, though not thoroughly, thought through. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
