Steve Jobs passed away!

[dammy]

@Dammy

Thats exactly the problem, Apple would not have been the No1 vendor of MacOS-HW by the end of the century and it's very questionable wether the transition to NextStep (aka OSX) would have worked out.

What if those clone-makers (representing 70% or more of the market) had put their weight behind something like BeOS or a revamped WindowsNT-PPC ?

Vs going X86 and ARM?

OSX allmost killed Apple as it were, but under such circumstances....

And OSX is the only thing that made the Mac "sensible" after 2003 or so.

Well that and make the Mac "sensible" was dumping PPC entirely and going with x86 and ARM.  Jobs' pull out of AIM killed any hope PPC had of being continually developed as a desktop CPU.  It was just a question of how far could Jobs BS people on how great PPC was before every knew he was lying through his teeth.

[dammy]

@dammy and EDanaII

I am speaking with 20/20 hindsight here, at the time I was very much thinking as you were that Apple needed to clone and expand the Mac platform independant of Apple... Problem is, I couldn't see the future as well as Jobs... And let's be fair he got it right, for Apple at any rate.

-edit- I forgot to add that every Apple product line is now built on the NeXTStep platform (if we exclude the legacy iPods)... iPod touch, Mac, iPad and iPhone all built on NeXTStep, amazing when you think about it!

Back then PPC was close to x86 capabilities.  It wasn't the future that Jobs was worried about, it was about his absolute control that was not there with the cloners.

[trekiej]

My condolences to the family.

[EDanaII]

@ bloodline

I don't disagree with what you are saying, however, what I'm saying is that Jobs could have done BOTH differentiate itself AND keep the clone market alive. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.

I tend to agree with Dammy, Jobs killed the clone market because he couldn't exercize the kinds of control he wanted over it.

Mind you, I'm not badmouthing the man, I just think that Apple would have been even more successful if they'd dared allow themselves to compete within their own market.

[Duce]

Depends what you consider as "Apple being successful".  Clone market was peanuts to Apple financially, initially $50 a license.  Now they sell you $500 of PC parts jammed into their machines for $1200 (minimum, base model iMac).

It may however have got them more market share vs. MS, but I honestly think Jobs saw the nightmare the early PC users had happen to them with vastly varied hardware and the drivers, IRQ, and etc. problems back in the DOS days.  No doubt Jobs was a control freak, but there's something to be said for writing an OS for hardware you are 100% in control of.

I think Apple would have never become the "prestigious" brand that all the hipster fanboys love and all the press worships today if the clone program was kept going.

[Lando]

Depends what you consider as "Apple being successful".  Clone market was peanuts to Apple financially, initially $50 a license.  Now they sell you $500 of PC parts jammed into their machines for $1200 (minimum, base model iMac).

I'd love to know where we buy these $500 non-Apple iMacs.  The closest competitor to Apple's iMac would be probably the Sony L-series all-in-ones which start at $1400 when configured to a similar spec to the base iMac, but with a plastic case rather than the all-aluminium chassis of the iMac.

[tone007]

I'd love to know where we buy these $500 non-Apple iMacs

In pieces at your local computer parts store.  Sony is a bad example, they charge a premium for their hardware design as well.

I've run OSX86 on $300 Dells, back in 2007 or so.

edit: oh, unless you're looking for the all-in-one format, sure, those are harder to find.  I've got a $400 Dell all-in-one here that might be worth a shot, but I think that particular form factor is overrated and would prefer a laptop.

[PastAmigaOwner]

@ bloodline

I don't disagree with what you are saying, however, what I'm saying is that Jobs could have done BOTH differentiate itself AND keep the clone market alive. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.

I tend to agree with Dammy, Jobs killed the clone market because he couldn't exercize the kinds of control he wanted over it.

Mind you, I'm not badmouthing the man, I just think that Apple would have been even more successful if they'd dared allow themselves to compete within their own market.

Apple (and Jobs) stated numerous times that their primary goal was not to have the highest market share, but to make high-quality products the that people want.  As they are the most valuable company in the world (technology or otherwise), you could argue that they have been successful with that plan, even though they hold a small (but growing) percentage of the PC market.  The situation with the iPhone is similar.  Android has a higher percentage of the market overall because that OS is on many third-party devices, but Apple makes far more money on the iPhone that Google or any of its partners do with Android or their respective phones.  Of course with some products, they are at the top for now (iPad, iPod).

[Kronos]

@tone007

Problem is that once you start comparing with "simplier" PC your comparision becomes unfair.

Their simply is more developing and manufactoring cost involved in an iMac as there is in mATX puter useing offtheshelf components.

Wether you want to pay those extra cost for that extra mile is only significant cos Apple doesn't offer consumer PC in a standard form factor.

[Iggy]

@tone007

Problem is that once you start comparing with "simplier" PC your comparision becomes unfair.

Their simply is more developing and manufactoring cost involved in an iMac as there is in mATX puter useing offtheshelf components.

Wether you want to pay those extra cost for that extra mile is only significant cos Apple doesn't offer consumer PC in a standard form factor.

Now that Apple has adopted standard X86 components the comparison is valid.
OSX could run on off the shelf components if Apple didn't want to lock in another revenue stream.
I find nothing particularly appealing in Apple designed hardware (let alone admitting that Apple goes an "extra mile").

[Duce]

It isn't terribly difficult to make a Hackintosh if you prefer to use OS X on non Apple HW.

[Iggy]

It isn't terribly difficult to make a Hackintosh if you prefer to use OS X on non Apple HW.

Yeah, but then you're violating the EULA.
Besides, I don't find anything in OSX that stands out when compared to other OS'.
I'd actually rather use Windows or Ubuntu (OR MorphOS).

[Digiman]

erm the £400 21" Touchscreen AIO iMac killer from MSI. Sure it won't run Battlefield 3 but then proper games like RAGE etc never come out for Mac either.

[nicholas]

Actually, I think Steve was a Buddhist.

'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/

[Tension]

In business, only bastards succeed.

you mean '(unts'

[ChuckT]

'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/

Not only that but their business parters believed in his nonsense because of the reality-distortion field:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

If you overcharge on products and sell them in areas of the country where people have no concept of money then you have loads of cash to pay for development.  

Some of the real criticism of Apple is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.

So if people don't believe the criticism then maybe the Apple reality distortion field is in effect.