DougNY

MacBook Pro 2.16 Ghz, 2GB Ram, 120GB Hardrive. Had it two weeks now (got it on the first delivery day). Love it. cannot be more pleased. Have PCs all over my office and Macs at home. Everything integrates well.

Raptor

OCBen and all the other Windowholics out there: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006...5bootcamp.html

Marsellus Wallace

I have one of these-its the ACER 3400 FERRARI.Bit of a gimmick but looks nice on the desk.

DMin

Man I have about 8 Wintel boxes at home (for running games), a dual G5 2Ghz Powermac with 30" Cinema display, 15" and 17" Powerbooks, 15" Macbook Proat home. I use a Dell XPS M170 notebook and HP TC1100 tablet at work.

It's a disease... like cars.

boolala

Apple relaesed Boot Camp today allowing Intel based Macs to dual boot Windows:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006...5bootcamp.html

allegretto

Six different XP machines, two Macs.

I may be in the minority, but I find plusses and minuses about both OS. But when it comes to Video editing, Mac wins by 12 lenghts. No Contest.

OCBen

When I was in b-school I wrote a thesis on Apple's apparent dilemma at the time: either be a computer maker or a software maker, but not both, if they really want to garner more than the 3% share of the computer market at the time.

You might recall that Apple in the early 80s was competing with other microcomputer companies such as Commodore and Atari who in addition to building the machines also developed the software to run them. That was the paradigm at the time. When IBM was developing the IBM "Personal Computer" and subcontracted the relatively trivial task of writing a basic disk-operating-system to some kid who was good at writing code and his business partner, the first significant paradigm shift in the way personal computers were packaged took place.

Apple meanwhile continued unabated with the old paradigm, and unfazed by IBM's success, and found its own successful formula in 1984 with the introduction of the Mac and its accompanying Mac OS. ... The rest is history that you all know quite well by now.

The problem with Apple's old paradigm is that not many software developers were willing to invest resources to develop a Mac version that would only account for 3% of its sales. Which pretty much explains why Apple's share of the market is what it is today.

But now with the announcement of Boot Camp, you can expect even fewer Mac versions of available software in the future. Where's the incentive to develop them? Mac owners will increasingly find themselves booting-up in Windows to use their favorite programs that are no longer available in Mac OS versions.

After some 25 years Apple finally, though begrudgingly, will make that paradigm shift, and become what it always wanted to become - a computer maker.

Coochas

Agree about the video editing,...with my newest quad G5 box I can crunch out vids at a pretty good clip,....and have about 6 of them crunching at the same time - it's really cool.

woody-77

Have to agree with that one.

Raptor

OCBen: Good review. I know Apple is concerned about the developers' resistance to dula-platform code. But, there is a (good) chance that the proselytized will push development rather than the platform pulling development. OSX is sure a lot more robust than Vista (lol).

Check it out: http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/index.php?p=307

texas911

Yeah but 3% of a billion is still a lot. Apple = Porsche of computers, very high margins.

OCBen

Absolutely true with regard to the high profit margins.

But if Apple loses that appeal it currently has with consumers because of its OS and is forced to compete on the sole strength of its supposedly superior design, they will get beat like a drum by the likes of Dell and others who realize a computer is just an appliance that gets replaced every few years - almost on a consumable level where price is the competitive edge.

It should be interesting to see how this will play out in the next several years.

DMin

For a lot of us on these forums, those same words describe the cars we drive. And Porsche is the most profitable car maker in the industry.

boolala

Raptor: sorry I hadn't seen that you posted the same link earlier in the day about Boot Camp.

Interesting perspective but my take is just the opposite. Me thinks Apple is going to license OS X to run on generic Intel boxes and thus morph into largely a software company competing with Windows but continue offering "premium" hardware with "upscale" designs for those who want that.

Read the book Apple Confidential. Not only does it document the ups and downs, sucesses and disasters of this upstart company but also contains an amazing letter that Gates wrote to Sculley in 1985 encouraging Apple to license it's software to several hardware manufacturers as a way for Apple to gain widespread acceptance. Fortunately for Gates and MS Apple did not take him up on this or today Apple would be MS and MS would be a relative bit player.

pongobaz

Mac all the way!
At home:
1 G4 powerbook
1 G3 powerbook
2 emacs

1st mac bought while in school (1985) Mac 128K...still have it stored somewhere!