Apple iPad
- Thread starter g4m3rof1337
- Start date
MacBook
banned
No one needs an iPad, some people just like having the latest gadgets.
tlarkin
VIP Member
Well we all know you hate apple. Also, I have a library of 100s of books and I am not going to carry them all around. If I could fit my tech books and manuals on a nice eReader I'd consider buying one. If they were cheaper as I am pretty frugal by nature.
speedyink
VIP Member
In complete and utter honesty;
I loved macs until i used one for a long period of time.
I loved the ipods when they first released the nano (Was indifferent before as my trusty ol mp3 cd player was still kickin strong). After a while I grew tired of more features being added to them that had less and less to do with music.
I loved the itouch when it first came out, but was offput by it's sound quality and gimickiness
I loved Steve Jobs....well, I never liked him actually
Apple has had plenty of chances, and with all the praise they get from the tv commercials to the mac geeks to customers who use macs, I just always get let down. They just simply aren't as stable, fast, and easy to use as promised. Like, really, I've never seen a computer completely shit the bed from a bad stick of ram till i got a mac.
So in conclusion, no, I don't like a company who lies to me, impedes with me doing a damn thing with the hardware, and releases revisions almost bi-yearly.
As for the ebook thing, ok, open ebook readers where you can download a copy of a book from any obscure website to get a book or tech manual you'd otherwise not find, great. In fact now that I think about it that's a neat use for them. I've always been a fan of open file support though, so the ipad with it's itunes only books has me skeptical.
I was thinking more about how many novels does someone read at one time, normally one.
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tlarkin
VIP Member
Apple does what the majority of their customers want, and most people want those features. Not gonna say they are right or wrong, just saying from a business stand point that is what they do.
I loved Steve Jobs....well, I never liked him actually
I doubt you could name any billionaire CEO that you liked, I know I most likely couldn't.
Actually, this is where Apple is actually better as to your specific example. I have had plenty of macs boot with one bad stick of RAM and actually run, but I have never had a PC even past post with a stick of RAM. Also, they both fail, so that point is kind of moot. I just had a HD fail in my PC that was only 6 months old. Computer components fail, that is the nature of the beast. Apple machines are a bit picky on what brand of RAM will work with them, but so are many other PC manufacturers, Sony to name one.
So, you'd rather have a product that rolls out a new OS every 6 years instead of every 2? Not sure where you are going with this. What cannot you not do with the hardware? That doesn't make any sense. What, over clocking?
The Kindle is the leading one right now and it has pretty much zero features. It was catching on rather fast and other companies are jumping in. Apple is one of them, but they also wanted to bring in some functionality of say a netbook, so they did. It is not a netbook nor is it an eReader but really it is the combination of the two, or maybe the best of both worlds is a better description.
speedyink
VIP Member
Hmm, I'm not sure if the intel macs are different or what. All I know is that my mac completely shit the bed, as in i didn't get a light or a sound when I pushed the power button. Took me a week to figure out it was a bad stick of ram. Took it out, "buuuuh" mac sound. The PC may not post but it at least turns on so you can diagnose whats wrong.
Actually I was specifically was referring to the ever changing ipod line
diduknowthat
formerly liuliuboy
But they're still completely different types of screens. E-Read screens looks and reads like book on paper while the ipad screen puts out light like an LCD screen.
Either way it'll be interesting to see it's reception. One thing I am quite impressed by it is it's (claimed) 10+ hour battery life!
PohTayToez
Active Member
This is a response to some of the iPad discussion that was going on http://www.computerforum.com/131062-fail-thread-31.html.
Overpriced is a broad and not exactly easily definable term. Yes, they use high end parts, but that doesn't mean that they still aren't overpriced. If you look at their financial results, and compare them to other companies in the the same market, you'll find that Apple's ratio of cost of sales vs. net revenue is considerably lower.
I mean, if we were to define what overpriced meant, would a good judge of that be to just look as see how much of the money you spend on a device goes straight into the pocket of the company you're buying it from? For example, on average for every $1000 spent on Mac products $301.38 left over after you factor in manufacturing costs, research and development, employee wages, marketing, etc. For HP, the number is only $118.01 for every $1000, which is more comparable to every other major computer manufacturer. So Apple could easily lower their prices by 20% and still have a profit margin that competes in their market.
Overpriced is a broad and not exactly easily definable term. Yes, they use high end parts, but that doesn't mean that they still aren't overpriced. If you look at their financial results, and compare them to other companies in the the same market, you'll find that Apple's ratio of cost of sales vs. net revenue is considerably lower.
I mean, if we were to define what overpriced meant, would a good judge of that be to just look as see how much of the money you spend on a device goes straight into the pocket of the company you're buying it from? For example, on average for every $1000 spent on Mac products $301.38 left over after you factor in manufacturing costs, research and development, employee wages, marketing, etc. For HP, the number is only $118.01 for every $1000, which is more comparable to every other major computer manufacturer. So Apple could easily lower their prices by 20% and still have a profit margin that competes in their market.
PohTayToez
Active Member
I was by no means suggesting that they lower their prices by 20%. From a business perspective, it's not likely a good decision. If they did, then they'd have to sell 25% more product to make the same amount of money. Apple makes a lot of money catering to the smaller audience, and I don't have a problem at all with how they do business.
tlarkin
VIP Member
You are forgetting about factoring in something, which is total cost of ownership. Apple only marks up their hardware around 10 to 15 percent, just like most other computer companies. The difference is, Apple designs them. Where as a company like HP will just ask for a bid from Asus on how many motherboard they can make them and at what cost. HP doesn't have the overhead of hardware engineers designing their machines. At my last job we ran almost strictly HP business class desktop, laptops and all Proliant servers. Most of the motherboards in their desktops were made by Asus, as they would have the Asus stamp on them.
Apple also has a ridiculous amount of staff. They have people dedicated to certain sections of their products for just testing. A guy I work with, his brother is in the hand-held division of Apple. His job is to literally test out iPods, iPhones and now iPads with all kinds of products and give the developers feed back on how they work, if they work, and what should be improved.
For Apple's market share I bet they have more employees than a company with a larger market share because they keep everything in house. Which may change since from a business standpoint it is much cheaper to just contract out the lowest bidder.
Like I was telling everyone on other threads. Build a PC spec for spec part for part like an iMac. The cheapest IPS 22" screen I can find is over $500, which is about half the cost of the 22" iMac for just the screen alone.
Apple makes deals I am sure and gets certain price breaks for them. I bet they got a sweet deal with Intel since they exclusively use Intel processors. Intel knows that Apple is good for x amount of business per a year so they probably give them a good deal on their product. That does not account for the cost of overhead that goes into it.
It is literally just a different business model is all. I am typing this message from my PC at the moment and I love it, and from my standpoint I would build a PC desktop over buying a Mac one almost any day of the week. However, I am not going to sit there and say Apple is over priced. You get what you pay for. My $200 22" Samsung display is great, but it doesn't have IPS technology in it.
PohTayToez
Active Member
The numbers I used factored in everything, not just the cost of manufacturing. If you look at the company as a whole they have an even bigger gross profit margin of 40%, because they also make money on outside investments.
epidemik
Active Member
I was talking to the head of my high school IT department (I'm an intern there). I dont really see a use for it but he thought that at (really wealthy) high schools and colleges, it could work as a textbook replacement. I guess I can kinda see that but still, not much consumer application (other than showing off how rich you are).
On a side note: He made a pretty funny joke about the name iPad sounding similar to a female hygiene product.
On a side note: He made a pretty funny joke about the name iPad sounding similar to a female hygiene product.
MacBook
banned
Meh, I can possibly see that, but there are quite a few times when it's easier to fold over a page and go back and forth then trying to navigate through the pages on an iPad.
Calibretto
VIP Member
I'm just loving how Steve Jobs was bashing on netbooks during his keynote. Then he showed us the iPad. I'm sorry, but the iPad is nowhere near a netbook killer. It doesn't even belong in the same category as netbooks.
I would be much happier if the iPad ran Mac OS or something based off of Mac OS. That alone would make the iPad tons better.
I would be much happier if the iPad ran Mac OS or something based off of Mac OS. That alone would make the iPad tons better.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Flaring Afro
New Member
I agree. Netbooks are more powerful and many are smaller and have about the same battery life (8+ hours). The iphone is much more practical because you can actually put it in your pocket. The "itampon" is usesless.
