Some iPod Fans Dump PCs For Macs 1036
dereklam writes "The popularity of the iPod could be boosting Macs' popularity as well. News.com reports that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey." I wish the linked story had more details; it's not clear from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.
Bought my iPod Mini on Monday (Score:5, Interesting)
Odd correlation (Score:3, Interesting)
Dan East
It makes sense... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure it's flamebait, sure it's troll, but it's also true... and you know it.
Causality (Score:5, Interesting)
Wallstreet [marketwatch.com] seems to think there is.
Of course.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's iTunes, not the iPod. (Score:5, Interesting)
If these numbers are correct (and pan out) then Apple's "gamble" turned out to be correct.
Number's not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday (Score:1, Interesting)
I still have the G4, but it's running a much more sensible OS - Linux - and I can use my new iPod on my main Windows box.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:1, Interesting)
Apple Brand Going Strong (Score:5, Interesting)
While initialy this hardly proved true, it's a very strong sales pitch to have a constant companion with an apple logo on it.
The near ubiquity, and total inunduation of ipods being everywhere also goes a long way towards making apple look like a damn good brand (if they do the ipods so well, the must be good at computers)
I think if apple keeps hammering away at highly tailored and very well-made digital appliances, there computer market share will continue to grow as people put trust in their products.
Though id rather see the specifics of this data to see whether it has any real merit.
Probably a much more intresting question is how apple is going to be able to increase their market share outside the US/japan. While your typical developed high GDP citizen can afford apple's products, getting apple products into the hands of less wealthy countries is a big stumbling block that needs to be addressed if they want to get their hands on the largest emerging computing markets.
we shall see
One Right Here (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd used Macs for web development in a previous job, and had always liked OS X. I was ecstatic when iTunes was released for the PC, as it was the singularly best program for managing large music collections I'd ever seen.
When I got my new job, one of the first things I did is shell out for an iPod to replace my crappy car CD changer. The Apple design philosophy appealed to me, and the incredible ease-of-use of both iTunes and the iPod were a big factor.
Last month I bought an iBook - the fact that they dropped the price, bumped up the CPU speed, and added AirPort Express for free was enough to get me off the fence. I wanted a laptop that was lighter than my old Compaq which weighs more than Kirstie Allie after camping out at a Royal Fork for a week. The iBook was light, priced competitively, and had all the features I want.
I had been trying to get my WinXP Home laptop to connect to the shared files on my XP Pro desktop for days, and finally just gave up. The iBook not only saw the network, but just asked for the password to connect. That was it. No hastle, no fiddling with network setup, no hunting through poorly documented and frequently useless configuration pages. AirPort has no trouble connecting to any wireless network I can throw at it.
My next machine may well be a Mac. It runs the software I need to be productive, the UNIX underpinnings mean that I have not only all the UNIX tools I'm used to from vim to Apache, but I also have a beautiful and usable GUI to go with it.
I hated Macs before. The "classic" Mac OS never appealed to me in the slightest. But Mac OS X is a dream to use, from running Photoshop to using it as a test server with the built-in copy of Apache.
OS X just "gets it". It is by far the best OS I've used, and iTunes gives Windows users a preview of how well Mac software works. The iPod and iTunes are the perfect "gateway drug" into full-fledged Mac addiction. Macs have always been a niche product, and Apple has always been a niche retailer. But if the iPod helps drive even a small number of PC users towards the Apple platform, it's a net gain to Apple on top of the incredibly strong sales of the iPod line.
Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday (Score:2, Interesting)
I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group
Err...we are a rabid elitist group! Its because most of us Mac users strongly believe that we are using the best desktop computing products in the world and we find it difficult to understand why anyone would actually use Windows XP out of choice.
Piper Jaffray already knew it (Score:3, Interesting)
MacWorld UK has a related story [macworld.co.uk] today.
No matter how you look at it, if the "halo effect" is real, it's a Good Thing(tm) for Apple, and probably for the industry in general, because it proves that there are legitimate alternatives to Windows for the non-techie crowd.
p
Re:Still a small margin (Score:5, Interesting)
I fear the Slashdot crowd is more inclined to choose tasks based on the tools they want to use, the oposite of the "main stream".
I don't understand some people's stubbornness (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet I know people who are so simple minded they will not even try the thing. One guy I know, who won't d/l it told me to run out and buy this album by killswitch engage. I told him I'd catch it on iTunes. He of course dismissed this idea, saying they'd never have that kind of album. Well we did an indie band run down of his entire collection, chose 10 bands, and 8 out of ten was on iTunes.
I guess my point is, that, from a computer scientist's viewpoint like my own, I don't care what you run, as I XP, Linux, and Macs, and love them all equally, but if you're going to badmouth a product, at least have the nuts to TRY the thing
But back to my original point
Am I odd for trying to see the good in every platform? Sheesh, you should see my political beliefs
Re:Not for techs (Score:3, Interesting)
Just price their LCD monitors alone and your theory is easily quelled.
Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday (Score:2, Interesting)
Now Photos, video, gobs more space, games or an svideo output are thing to get excited about.
I switched... (Score:2, Interesting)
How so? (Score:0, Interesting)
And besides, (Score:5, Interesting)
(No, they didn't. I read this article before it was posted.)
Re:Odd correlation (Score:3, Interesting)
Because people are deciding that a company which has given them such an easy to use piece of hardware that just works merit some consideration in the next computer. Not having seen the iTunes software, that may have been a factor.
Remember, people synch their iPods from their computers.
Only if their Sony DVD player is so much more than an incremental improvement that they want to gain all of the rest of the benefits. In this case, people apparently feel that the iPod and its software so much better than what they've come to expect that, that they really want to get that benefit across the board.
And, if anywhere near 6% of the people who have bought iPods make this decision, that begins to represent one hell of a lot of new Mac users.
strong customer satisfaction (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a pretty incredible result for any consumer electronics gadget.
Also, I believe no one surveyed was unhappy with the lack of Ogg Vorbis support. In fact, when asked about whether Ogg was important to them, the most common answer was "I only like Ogg at Christmas with a little nutmeg on top."
Re:Still a small margin (Score:3, Interesting)
For $1300 I can build a top of the line gaming machine. (I guess I could spend $2500 and get Alienware or Dell stamped on it.)
Funny how the iPod is successful (Score:4, Interesting)
They use the same paradigm:
1) High standards
2) Design and user interface are the priority
3) Quality components
4) Style and marketing
5) Priced higher than most competitors as a result
Since both a Mac and an iPod basically seem to use the same business model, why is it that iPods are so successful now? Is it because most people simply find it easier to save up a few hundred bucks for a nice music player versus a couple thousand for a much nicer computing experience? Is it due to the "network effect" of "all my friends have pc's, so I won't get a mac" (hehe "all my friends have spyware and viruses, I guess it's normal for me to also have them")? Perhaps the iPod was able to break out of this network effect and create one of its own? What do you folks think?
The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G5 (Score:5, Interesting)
iBooks are the single best device out there for college students and many others. Excellent form factor, easy to use, even easier to maintain, good bang for the buck. The main drawback is the Microsoft effect, which has convinced users that all computers are slow to start up, slow to wake up, hard to configure, hard to use, virus prone, etc. and all alike and therefore won't look at anything new.
If one gets over that, for whatever reason, then rational though has a chance to. The push can come from an iPod or elsewhere. e.g. I loaned one out for 2 hours to an "MS is good enough for me and I'm not changing" small business owner. At the end of the two hours, he stated that his next hardware purchase will be a Mac. But for most, iPod will be the wake up.
I'm one of the switchers, thanks iPod. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been building my own PCs since 1996, which I know makes me a relative noob on Slashdot.
I had a Creative Nomad Jukebox, and it sucked. Traded it away last Christmas, and just from looking at the features and such, I impulse-bought a 20" G4 iMac.
Ok, perhaps it wasn't a complete impulse buy - I spent probably three days doing solid research - figuring out if I could VPN in to work with it (I could), seeing how useful OpenOffice was on OS X (very), and if the GIMP was supported (thanks, Darwin project).
Back to the point, the iPod and the hype surrounding it got me to the Apple web site. The Apple web site got me into the local Apple store, and a personal test drive got me into the driver's seat of an iMac. Just like in the Apple sales seminars, I'm sure.
Almost one solid year later, and I don't regret it a bit, btw. I've become a Mac evangilist to my family.
Re:Bought my iPod Mini on Monday (Score:2, Interesting)
Also upgrading to the latest 1.20 firmware, they play XviD videos restricted to these settings:
File format : AVI
Video Codec : XviD MPEG4 (recommended XviD 1.0.2 codec)
Resolution : 220 x 176 only
Frame Rate : 10fps at Maximum
Bit Rate : 500Kbps at Maximum (recommended under 450Kbps)
Audio Codec : MP3
BitRate : 128Kbps, 44.1KHz
It's not much until you begin converting videos and series episodes and you take it wherever you want
iPod is the gateway drug (Score:3, Interesting)
It was a brilliant piece of consumer electronics -- intuitive, functional, and downright slick-looking. And then they announced the iPod mini, and my wife's lust-o-meter got pegged. We took a trip to the Apple store "just to look" and ended up looking at everything else in the store as well. We didn't go home with an iPod mini, but we did go home with a 12.1" iBook. To share.
Shortly thereafter, we'd saved enough Amazon.com points to get an iPod mini on the cheap. His and hers, now. But the mini meant that the iBook would now be the sync machine of choice
So yeah, we're DINK without too many expenses. And I still maintain and use my PC. But I can guarantee that we wouldn't have even considered a Mac if it hadn't been for an iPod. Of course, that's just our personal experience, but how many more must think the same way?
Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G (Score:5, Interesting)
The GUI is there and simple for novice users, and the UNIX shell and environment are there for the more advanced people. It's truly an OS that works for everyone.
I never even looked at Macs when it was OS9 and before, because it didn't provide anything for my geeky self to dig into. But today's macs and OSX are just sweeeet.
I just wish Apple would get more competive, price-wise, with the Intel world. I know lots of people who would buy a Mac in an instant if they weren't so overpriced.
-Z
Re:I don't understand some people's stubbornness (Score:3, Interesting)
At home:
2 Sun SPARC boxes (NetBSD and Solaris 5.9)
3 Apple G4 Macs (OSX 10.3.5)
1 Apple Mac Plus (800k drives... real PCs don't have harddrives
8 x86 PCs running FreeBSD 5 in a render farm
At work:
Solaris 5.8, 5.9, 5.10
VMS 7.3
AIX 5.1
Windows 2000
I have found delightful things about all of these platforms, areas of total supremacy. I have found horrible flaws in all of these platforms, that just make me pissed off.
I am not surprised that people are looking at Apple after liking the iPod. I typically "inherited" a new platform, as people were laid-off, but I have grown to love all of them. Once you break the seal and try a new platform, you typically will find something nice about it.
For me, the biggest things are editors... I write a lot every day (email, code, scripts, SQL, etc), and so editors make a big difference to me. The finest editor I have ever used is probably LSE or EVE on VMS, followed closely by TPU. Then, Vim and Emacs following along. However, NetBeans is also very nice (though language specific). Dead last would be XCode... possibly the worst code editor I have ever used.
But anyhow, the point of this was that it is important to be platform agnostic, and go where the tools or money are. Spending your life on one OS is like living in one town forever. BORING.
-WS
Re:Still a small margin (Score:4, Interesting)
So lets see... after spending 500 bucks for an iPod, Apple has received a further $3500+ purely because I liked their little white music player. Case in point. I dont know how many others
Well, the iPod made me switch (Score:2, Interesting)
You know where this is headed...I'm typing this on a 17" Powerbook in Starbucks, connected via WiFi. I've booted my pc about 6 times in the last year, and 2 of those were from SLAX.
I've sunk about $10k into Mac/Apple hardware and software, and I couldn't be happier. I have NO plans of ever going back.
So yes, here's one case of a techie who really did switch!
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Me Too, From Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
I should mention that photoshop was rather cool, and once it came out on PC, I had no reason to ever look back at Macs.
My take now is that it's all just a pretty face on a mountain of code. The more stable the code is the better. I'm not very happy with certain aspects of XP, but I'm stuck due to the availability of certain apps which are ONLY available on PC.
I had the same experience with Macs prior to OS X. Now I've got one for work, and support about 50/50 Macs and PC's and love the Macs. I find that from the POV of getting over my prior loathing of the platform, it helps to think of it as just being NextStep 5. It's easy to do when you program in Cocoa and everything derives from NSObject.
Re:The iPod merely brought attention to iBook or G (Score:3, Interesting)
The initial price of a computer is only a fraction of its true cost. This is especially true if your time is valuable. For portables the price difference between an iBook and a similarly equipped Wintel system is actually in Apple's favor, especially if you figure in the expense in time and money to get the Wintel system reasonably secure against all the malware it is susceptible to. This is an ongoing effort not needed for the iBook.
Rather infectious, aren't they? (Score:2, Interesting)
I too just picked one up a couple months back. Purchased the 15" powerbook, and I must say, it's a beautiful machine. Unix never looked so sweet.
Re:Still a small margin (Score:5, Interesting)
I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.
This is an interesting turnaround. Because if you feel that way about an iPod, and a lot of people do, then you suddenly realise that in one area having an apple computer will be better. In fact, the area which apple excels in (no pun intended) is the iLife series. I have a friend who bought a powerbook solely for iMovie/iDVD, and others for GarageBand.
What it says is - as a PC user, if you like this stuff, you will always be on the back foot getting this stuff. Sure, it will come to the PC eventually (as the iPod did), but it will still be a second rate port. The best example of this at the moment is the iPod photo, and how they had to mangle in the photo support into iTunes for the PC users. But it still won't be as good as iPhoto.
And the likely hood that Apple will drop their platform and become a PC software vendor? Close to zero - they are a hardware company.
So, if you like using technology for most multimedia stuff, which includes music players such as the iPod (or airport express for the home music center) your choice is this:
Get a mac, or become a late adopter as stuff filters through to the PC. Sure, you will get games and business software first on a PC. But if you like playing music more, the most popular music player is the iPod (based on sales), and that will drive you to buying an apple computer first.
I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.
Michael
Re:The jedis are in full swing (Score:2, Interesting)
Happened to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
In the end the decision was forced upon me. My laptop HD failed about 3 days before I was heading overseas for 3 weeks. Did some quick research and ended up getting a PowerBook and it has been great.
I hate going back to XP now, I only do it for certain work applications now. Happily connecting to linux servers regularly. Things do just work so much more smoothly and are more reliable. I look after 4 PC laptops in our small business, and windows wireless is so flaky under XPSP2. I have no troubles.
Microsoft Office 2004 on Mac is much better than 2003 on PCs, and interoperates with no problems. And its great being able to open a shell and rsync to backup the important stuff on the servers. I'm starting to find a good range of open source software to use as well. iSync is great as I can sync iCal and Addressbook to my Palm, K700i phone and ipod all at once. Only real downsides I have is that there is no Visio or Project available (otherwise I'd be able to move the rest of our work laptops to Macs as well, Virtual PC is OK but not suitable for my other users) or there is no decent New Zealand mapping software that runs natively. Hopefully these will be remedied over time though one means or other.
Re:Not for techs (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't know.
I have been using computers for +15 years, woking as: programmer, tech support, tech support manager, software architect, security consultant, freelance and many other hats.
I have Cisco, Microsoft, Novell and RedHat Certifications (and not the basic ones, im MSCE, CNE, RHCE, etc.).
I have been using Unix and Linux for more than 10 years.
I have been using/administering/fixing all kinds of computers: Pc's, Bull systems, Tandem, Data General, Digital, IBM, Hitachi, etc, etc, etc
And after all that.. YES I DO USE A MAC and love the command line (yes i also have a gentoo linux server at home)
Who are you to tell me that this machine is not good for me ?
Re:Not for techs (Score:3, Interesting)
You need to do more research if you think Mac OS X is Linux with a different skin. And the laptops are anodized aluminum, they aren't sprayed.
I suppose Linux users craft their own hard drives from iron ore?
The OS for the iPod comes from PortalPlayer, but the interface and application design on top of that (including the fonts) are the work of Apple. Apple hired the guys that developed SoundJam and had them create iTunes. I honestly don't know how much SoundJam code was in iTunes 1.0, but I would imagine it was pretty much solely the low-level libraries because the applications looked very different.
First non-legacy PC, FireWire, Rendezvous (ZeroConf), windowed GUIs, iPod, iTunes Music Store, ADC, ADB...
Count me in... (Score:2, Interesting)
Although I run PC's at home; i bought my first Macintosh last month (an iBook G4 -- i've used them but not regularly, in the past--OS X being *IX is a HUGE draw for me)
All the subsequent family Computers will now be Macintoshes.
j.