Leopard will bring enormous market gains
Most iPhones, iPods, and AppleTVs go to Windows users using iTunes, which by now they know and probably even like a lot. Now imagine you’re a Windows user, and you hear the following:
Announcing Leopard, with an all-new Finder!
Hey, what’s that? Looks familiar, a lot like iTunes! It looks great, as nice as my iPhone, even!
Announcing powerful new iPhone features in Leopard!
Wow, that’s cool! They say it works on Windows too, but it looks like it works a lot better on the Mac. I wonder…
Announcing the all-new iMac, now with powerful iPhone integration!
Only $899? And the holiday season is coming…
Recent reports indicate that new iPhone owners love their iPhones, and one of the reasons they do is because they understand how to use them, and thus feel empowered. This is bound to be a heady experience for users new to Apple products, heady enough to make them at least wonder, when Leopard starts making news, what it would be like to use other Apple products.
Apple knows this, and will almost certainly coordinate their marketing push accordingly. This holiday season seems poised to break all records
And all those Windows folks with iPhones will be used to the Sarari browser too.
I would agree. Windows users would be nuts not to look at Apple desktops very seriously. The Macintosh is way ahead of Windows in most aspects.
I will be buying a new MackBook Pro this coming holiday season. It will not only let me keep doing everything I currently do on my PowerBook G4 but also allow me to use some Windows software I will need to be teaching in my advanced undergraduate statistics class in the Spring semester (SPSS). It will also allow me to use MATLAB for my number crunching (I have a full Windows copy with many, many of the toolboxes), so I’ll finally be able to dump MS Excel.
If you are a windows user and thinking of a new machine, look at the mac line. You can run windows AND mac os on one machine.
Apple computers are great, but Apple simply doesn’t have the product lineup for large market share gains. They have no reasonable entry-level machine (the mini at this point is severely overpriced and underpowered), and no midrange “tower-like” machine. Apple’s laptops, which are very good, aren’t set up for company use without a dock connector or ability to close the lid and attach two external monitors.
Basically, Apple needs to have a couple of people thinking about the more practical side of things before they’re going to have a market share jump. Instead, they’ll probably slowly increase market share for awhile until it stabilizes again.
Sam,
I agree Apple needs a practical Mac tower and entry level machine to replace the mini. But remember, the mini is getting very old and is prime to be updated very soon. I think the Apple isi pretty smart and likely to realize that an affordable tower machine would sell extremely well.
Really the only problem with the mini is it needs to be updated and they need to toss in a keyboard and mouse. This is not a huge problem when you compare this to Microsoft’s situation of having horrible computers in every imaginable ugly design.
Apple’s PC software is the best stuff running on windows. With OSX on the iPhone, more people will see how much better it works than the alternative. Will windows roll up and go away? Not likely. Can apple one day see market share in the 30 - 50 percent range. Very likely. And it will happen way faster than anyone is predicting today. 10 years ago everyone thought Apple was dead. 5 years ago everyone was surprised to see them innovating. Today they’re running circles around their competition, particularly MicroSoft. 5 years from now it’s a whole new ball game.
Leopard is irrelevant as long as the cheapest desktop is $2500… Steve Jobs needs to get off his ego and sell a non-iMac, non-macMini, non-$2000+ tower
keith, the iMac is $999 and the Mac mini is $599? Why rule them out so summarily? And with portables outselling desktops, certainly the MacBook ($1099) and MacBook Pro ($1999) will figure heavily in Leopard’s reception. Apple’s lineup looks pretty good, actually. What would you improve, specifically?
@Bender Robot:
I used to teach statistics and I used SPSS for Mac (circa 1995). Are you sure there isn’t a native version of SPSS on the Mac?