Hey Don, Other than Superbowls, the last presidential election, and a few debates, I really haven't watched any live TV in the last 4+ years, so I haven't seen most of the Apple or MS ads. I do think that for a long time Apple (and I think they admitted this) was trying to, and succeeded in, dominating the MP3 market with the iPod in the hope that this would convince people to then go and buy Macs. I'm sure this was also at least one goal for the iPhone and iPad - I'm sure their margins for PC's are much higher than for those smaller devices.
Oh, and I wasn't comparing XP to the current snow leopard or whatever the latest MacOS is called, but rather the version that was existing back when XP was out - I thought it was out in 2000 (ok, so that's TECHNICALLY the last millenium) and Vista wasn't around till 2003 or even 2004? Anyway, since I don't know the current version of MacOS, I wasn't trying to compare it to that. Then again, I don't know the prior ones either, except from glancing at them in the Apple store. So who knows, could be the versions back 7-10 years ago were much less functional? But I thought they all were still OS X, which meant they were based on Linux, which meant if you really wanted to do some interesting stuff you could hack into the Linux core? Not that I'd do that necessarily, but I wonder if that is the point that for hard-core geeks, Macs started to look more attractive? As for these developers that have Macs, I don't think they bought them just to develop WebOS apps! They are web developers by and large, and since WebOS is based entirely on web technologies/languages, I don't think they had to change much going to that platform. So I wonder if Macs have been encroaching on the (non-MS) web development segment - ie html, js, css, java, python, rails, perl, the whole lamp platform that google and others use for serving web pages, etc. Anyway, just find it interesting because my previous assumptions of Macs being more for graphic designers or people who just weren't very tech-savvy was kind of exploded over the last year or so as I came across more technical folks who used to own PC's but switched to Macs. I suppose I could just ask some of these guys why they did this, which I probably will now... Levi Wallach blog: http://twelveblackcodemonkeys.com tweet me @dvdmon (http://twitter.com/dvdmon) On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 12:50 AM, Don Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey Levi, > > > > I'm a small business I/T consultant - everything from strategic selection > of > I/T products and services through acquisition, installation, configuration > and ongoing support. Target market is clients with fewer than 20 computer > users. My clients are business from a variety of industries > (http://www.interconnected.com/our-clients/ - not a great web site, but > hey, > I did it myself!!). I also have picked up quite a large number of single > proprietorship home business and residential clients over the years. > > > > No idea about development environments on MacOS vs. Windows, but I'd be > surprised if anything in that space on MacOS was superior to what's > available on Windows - unless you're developing for the Mac, of course. > There has always been a pretty high correlation between Palm use and Mac > use. Many early- to mid-period Pilot/PalmPilot/Palm users were moderate to > vehement Microsoft haters, and so they gravitated to "anything but > Microsoft." Obviously that's not the case with me. Maybe the MacOS-based > tools lend themselves better to WebOS development? > > > > I'm always troubled when people try to compare Windows XP, which was > developed in the previous millennium (when the majority of my hair was > still > brown), with current MacOS systems. Both MacOS and Windows have grown > considerably in the past 10 years: I think Win7 compares favorably with > MacOS for looks, style and simplicity, and I think MacOS has improved > greatly under the covers in that time (although there is still a lot of > weirdness under the covers that dates back to the '80s). > > > > I think in recent times MacOS increased its market share from 4.3% to 4.6%, > so it's seeing some growth (especially with high-end laptops), and it > certainly capitalized (brilliant marketing) on the "if you're going to have > to 'start over' anyway (as with the clean install that's required to go > from > XP to 7), you might as well start over with MacOS" concept, but I think > that's died down with better (if goofy) ads for Windows 7 (which everyone > else seems to like better than I do), and Apple's near-exclusive focus on > the iPad (and practically no advertising for the Mac). Don't you just love > Peter Coyote's voice in those iPad ads: "you already know how to use it" > and > "with more books than you can read in a lifetime" - brilliant! > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
