New Arm v9 announced

I'm just trying to picture all of those middle-aged women in the office, the ones who can barely use a computer and freak out any time anything changes at all--they're the ones that have notepads full of exactly every mouse click and keypress to do their jobs, and heaven help if they miss a step one time--switching from Windows to Apple and wondering how well that'd go.
I have 2 windows 7 machines I can't replace because their users filed a union grievance, I am counting down the days until they retire so those machines can go with them. It wasn't worth the hassle, and they don't have direct access to any sensitive information just gave them static IP's and got VERY specific with the firewall filters for any traffic coming or going out of those machines.
 
I have 2 windows 7 machines I can't replace because their users filed a union grievance, I am counting down the days until they retire so those machines can go with them. It wasn't worth the hassle, and they don't have direct access to any sensitive information just gave them static IP's and got VERY specific with the firewall filters for any traffic coming or going out of those machines.
It makes you nostalgic for the old Japanese practice of "your job and salary remain the same, but your duties now solely consist of {being a janitor,planning the annual company party}".
 
x86 is done for this time!

Linux is going to pull ahead on the desktop this time!

Duke Nukem Forever will be out this year!

Stop me if you have heard this before.

ARM is only for phones and cannot scale up.

ARM is nowhere to be used in supercomputers.

Amazon Graviton is going nowhere.

Apple will switch Intel by AMD because ARM is slow.
 
Easy there, buddy, I was just using them as an example because they're very common in the business world. You are right, they're not the only people at all like that. (But they do make up a significant fraction of my user base at work.)
The problem for intel in the business world desktop market is obviously not Apple. Last I checked Apple isn't really all that serious about that market nor have they ever been... sure some places seem to like their laptops ipads and phones, but as a rule ya its not a market Apple seems to care about. Of course there is the outside possibility that all those people your talking about are going to more and more end up with Apple products at home... so your point is still wrong on its face, IF (and they aren't) apple decides to ever really care about that market (and they won't discount bulk PC sales are not their thing) the switch would be much less painless then you seem to think. Heck for most people I do support for these days 3/4 of the work seems to be in a browser window. lol

Apple is going to bring the pain in high performance desktop computing where Intel still actually has profit margin. You really think Intel is making a killing in workstations ??? Those have and always will be low profit. Intel isn't making a ton of money selling bulk low end i3 and i5s to Dell for business machines. The real margin comes from the high performance parts going into artistic workstations. Its a market that has basically grown every year since the desktop became a thing in the 80s. Architects, video, audio and photo production, designers... all the cool stuff. :p Those people are already well aware of Apple even if they are using PCs at the moment. Apple will be coming for those markets hard. The ARM Mac Pros are a real threat to markets Intel actually makes profit margin on. Of course the boring ass workstations are still the biggest part of their sales makeup... but its the margins on those high end parts that keep the investors happy.

And of course beyond Apple and on to ARM in general. Is anyone really thinking that if Microsoft is in fact building a Microsoft branded ARM chip... that they won't perhaps consider selling them for workstations ? Yes Microsoft is probably thinking about their own laptop and windows tablets. However if they do build a part powerful enough to replace Intel and compete with Apple.... why the hell would they stop there. It would seem like bad business to not go after the business market. Then those poor middle age women as you put it sitting at their desks with their cheat sheets can just go right on using them... cause Windows enterprise ARM isn't going to look or behave any differently. (it will simply draw 40% less power... and provide snappier performance for those types of workloads) There is nothing about powering word processors spreadsheets or web browsers that requires x86.
 
You really think Intel is making a killing in workstations ???
Do you have me confused with someone who mentioned that?

outside possibility that all those people your talking about are going to more and more end up with Apple products at home... so your point is still wrong on its face,

First off, you said right out "outside possibility", and then you tried to say I'm facially wrong. Clearly you don't know these people. Lakados even mentioned a problem with them.

They're not, as a class, bad or stupid people. They're hidebound about and afraid of computers, though. They will retire before they learn something new--or, if they are forced to learn something new, they will complain--loudly and at length, to anyone in earshot--about it forever. I know a bunch of these people. They're kinda endemic in HR. I'm not meaning to bash on them here, but stating something I've seen for years and years. Sure, they'll eventually age out or be forced out of the workforce (and relevance to this conversation) but until then, they'll fight endlessly. against any kind of change.

They may not even be a significant portion of the population--they almost certainly aren't--but you can't pretend they don't exist.

And none of this means I'm opposed to ARM becoming mainstream on the desktop/laptop/server. I'm just saying there's a bunch of people who seem overly-willing to handwave away a bunch of potential problems. And heck, consider the possibility, however unlikely, that in 2-3 years Intel comes out with a new line of CPUs that are as much more powerful as Rocket Lake as Zen was over Bulldozer, but use half the electricity. I know it's probably unlikely, but I bet that would rock the ARM pushers back on their heels.
 
Do you have me confused with someone who mentioned that?



First off, you said right out "outside possibility", and then you tried to say I'm facially wrong. Clearly you don't know these people. Lakados even mentioned a problem with them.

They're not, as a class, bad or stupid people. They're hidebound about and afraid of computers, though. They will retire before they learn something new--or, if they are forced to learn something new, they will complain--loudly and at length, to anyone in earshot--about it forever. I know a bunch of these people. They're kinda endemic in HR. I'm not meaning to bash on them here, but stating something I've seen for years and years. Sure, they'll eventually age out or be forced out of the workforce (and relevance to this conversation) but until then, they'll fight endlessly. against any kind of change.

They may not even be a significant portion of the population--they almost certainly aren't--but you can't pretend they don't exist.

And none of this means I'm opposed to ARM becoming mainstream on the desktop/laptop/server. I'm just saying there's a bunch of people who seem overly-willing to handwave away a bunch of potential problems. And heck, consider the possibility, however unlikely, that in 2-3 years Intel comes out with a new line of CPUs that are as much more powerful as Rocket Lake as Zen was over Bulldozer, but use half the electricity. I know it's probably unlikely, but I bet that would rock the ARM pushers back on their heels.
I do some user level support for money (although most of what I do isn't with end users)... I would hate to say its my living anymore as I do less and less of it. But ya I do know the users your talking about. To be fair perhaps its more indicative of who I do support for more then the true numbers of those users in the world... but I don't see very many of them anymore. Perhaps there are some industries where there are still high concentrations of the 60+ almost out of the workforce I don't like me no computer types... I don't know. Perhaps they're all in insurance or something. IME they have been rapidly aging out for the last 20 years. I have ran into my share of stupid users the last number of years but I can't recall meeting any of the type Lakados describes. (I do remember they type though way back in the 90s) lol As someone else said I have seen more of the younger... AHHH a keyboard types the last few years then the don't change my windows types. (really watching 20 somethings type these days is painful... it really does flash me back to the early 90s watching 40 year olds peck and stare out the bottom of their glasses at the keys like they might rearrange themselves if they look away)
 
I do some user level support for money (although most of what I do isn't with end users)... I would hate to say its my living anymore as I do less and less of it. But ya I do know the users your talking about. To be fair perhaps its more indicative of who I do support for more then the true numbers of those users in the world... but I don't see very many of them anymore. Perhaps there are some industries where there are still high concentrations of the 60+ almost out of the workforce I don't like me no computer types... I don't know. Perhaps they're all in insurance or something. IME they have been rapidly aging out for the last 20 years. I have ran into my share of stupid users the last number of years but I can't recall meeting any of the type Lakados describes. (I do remember they type though way back in the 90s) lol As someone else said I have seen more of the younger... AHHH a keyboard types the last few years then the don't change my windows types. (really watching 20 somethings type these days is painful... it really does flash me back to the early 90s watching 40 year olds peck and star out the bottom of their glasses)
Yeah, my two users are 66 and 64, they have been working here since they were like 19, I'm not going to really give them crap over it because I never hear from them, they have their Win 7 boxes running Office 2016, and all the software they need on a monitor they like and I managed to get them onto SSD's at least so they won't be failing any time soon and if the boxes go I have 12 more I have retired sitting in salvage that I can just grab parts from. They would have retired already but the COVID messed with their retirement travel plans so they are just coasting till it blows over. Honestly, I think they just raised the fuss because it really pissed off their new (at the time) boss who wants them to learn how to use a Mac because he can't use Windows and has failed to understand how their filing system works in Sharepoint so he causes them extra work as they have to go the extra mile to accommodate him.
 
Apple doesn't cut corners. They may make decisions that are baffling and it isn't to say they don't make errors (notably Butterfly keyboards for 3 years) - but to say that any of their decisions are "cheap" or even similar to any other OEM, that's just inaccurate. They have the best touch points, highest levels of display quality, and they cram technology into every square inch (to the point that their haptics through their haptic engine are so good, they don't even need a physical button on their all glass touch pad - a multi-microphone system that is good enough to record vocals off of, and sound that is better than a majority of their competitors, etc). They don't stick in lowest common denominator hardware - like TN panels, the cheapest speakers and microphones possible. Every interior space of a Mac is used and has something crammed into it - which is very different than what an OEM PC looks like.

You are aware that Apple computers (with the sole exception of the Mac Pro) are made by the same OEM channel partners in China (Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron) as just about all other PC brands use, right?
 
You are aware that Apple computers (with the sole exception of the Mac Pro) are made by the same OEM channel partners in China (Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron) as just about all other PC brands use, right?
Yes. You are aware the custom bespoke hardware that isn't intentionally duplicated over and over across every OEM costs more money right? PC OEM's can drive costs down by simply using the pre-made part, and because every PC OEM uses the same parts bin it drives costs down. As has been discussed Apple currently sells about 10% of all PC shipments in 2020. That means the other 90% are manufacturing out of the same parts bin whereas Apple isn't. There literally has to be custom fabrication for Apple for literally every part. And that is also done with much more expensive materials.

What do you think is cheaper, injected molded plastic, or highly specialized and routed aluminum? What do you think is cheaper, a mousing surface that is used on every PC OEM, or one with a custom taptic engine made out of glass? As far as I know as well, every display that Apple receives is custom built for them from Samsung and LG display, at least I'm not aware of a single PC using a 2880x1880 or 3072x1920 monitor. What PC manufacturers have an OLED touchbar (love it or hate it)? Did you know that even their battery cells use custom proprietary technology for charging and discharging as well as custom cells to fill every space inside their laptops (as opposed to just buying a brick battery from any of the OEM manufacturers made en-mass)?
Don't get me wrong, Apple definitely still gets things at scale and Tim Cook's superpower is logistics - but it's also verifyably true just even in the things I'm bringing up that Apple hardware is more expensive to manufacture and uses more expensive parts.

And this is ignoring other major costs that Apple has that PC manufacturers only have to smaller and lesser degrees. There is no one and/or no team making custom ARM chips outside of Apple - Dell and HP certainly aren't doing that, doing large scale materials science, or frankly engineering the hardware together at the level that Apple is on the PC side. In other words there is a lot higher R&D cost to what Apple is doing as compared to any other PC manufacturer - which again gets stuff from the parts bin, buys OEM everything, and more or less has the engineering standard of fitting stuff into a prebuilt chassis with prebuilt hardware (eg: Cleo, Sager, etc).

You also didn't address competing products like the Microsoft Surface Studio which costs in the same ball park as Apple products. Or actually more. It comes with an nVidia 1060 and starts at an eye-watering starting MSRP of $3500. Again, could it be that more expensive materials and processes as well as custom hardware and a higher engineered product are more expensive? Could that custom touch and drawing display warrant an additional $2500?
The Surface X is the closest thing on PC side to a new M1 Mac and it's pitifully slow in comparison and only starts to make sense if you want pen tablet stuff built in. But the point even in bringing up the Surface Pro X is again: when PC side starts to approach the custom engineering necessary to build a product that is actually similar to a Mac, the cost "magically" also becomes similar to a Mac. And in both cases Microsoft wasn't even able to make near the same value proposition that Apple does, either in speed, or usability. Only merely being able to rely on touch and pen integration, which could just as easily be done on any other machine with a Wacom. Still, the point being, that its custom, bespoke, hardware had to make these machines cost what they cost in order to be viable. Mac's aren't cheap because Apple builds them not cheap.
 
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Yes. You are aware the custom bespoke hardware that isn't intentionally duplicated over and over across every OEM costs more money right? PC OEM's can drive costs down by simply using the pre-made part, and because every PC OEM uses the same parts bin it drives costs down. As has been discussed Apple currently sells about 10% of all PC shipments in 2020. That means the other 90% are manufacturing out of the same parts bin whereas Apple isn't. There literally has to be custom fabrication for Apple for literally every part. And that is also done with much more expensive materials.

What do you think is cheaper, injected molded plastic, or highly specialized and routed aluminum? What do you think is cheaper, a mousing surface that is used on every PC OEM, or one with a custom taptic engine made out of glass? As far as I know as well, every display that Apple receives is custom built for them from Samsung and LG display, at least I'm not aware of a single PC using a 2880x1880 or 3072x1920 monitor. What PC manufacturers have an OLED touchbar (love it or hate it)? Did you know that even their battery cells use custom proprietary technology for charging and discharging as well as custom cells to fill every space inside their laptops (as opposed to just buying a brick battery from any of the OEM manufacturers made en-mass)?
Don't get me wrong, Apple definitely still gets things at scale and Tim Cook's superpower is logistics - but it's also verifyably true just even in the things I'm bringing up that Apple hardware is more expensive to manufacture and uses more expensive parts.

And this is ignoring other major costs that Apple has that PC manufacturers only have to smaller and lesser degrees. There is no one and/or no team making custom ARM chips outside of Apple - Dell and HP certainly aren't doing that, doing large scale materials science, or frankly engineering the hardware together at the level that Apple is on the PC side. In other words there is a lot higher R&D cost to what Apple is doing as compared to any other PC manufacturer - which again gets stuff from the parts bin, buys OEM everything, and more or less has the engineering standard of fitting stuff into a prebuilt chassis with prebuilt hardware (eg: Cleo, Sager, etc).

You also didn't address competing products like the Microsoft Surface Studio which costs in the same ball park as Apple products. Or actually more. It comes with an nVidia 1060 and starts at an eye-watering starting MSRP of $3500. Again, could it be that more expensive materials and processes as well as custom hardware and a higher engineered product are more expensive? Could that custom touch and drawing display warrant an additional $2500?
The Surface X is the closest thing on PC side to a new M1 Mac and it's pitifully slow in comparison and only starts to make sense if you want pen tablet stuff built in. But the point even in bringing up the Surface Pro X is again: when PC side starts to approach the custom engineering necessary to build a product that is actually similar to a Mac, the cost "magically" also becomes similar to a Mac. And in both cases Microsoft wasn't even able to make near the same value proposition that Apple does, either in speed, or usability. Only merely being able to rely on touch and pen integration, which could just as easily be done on any other machine with a Wacom. Still, the point being, that its custom, bespoke, hardware had to make these machines cost what they cost in order to be viable. Mac's aren't cheap because Apple builds them not cheap.

No...those higher costs "magically" become associated with brand name.

I assure you that the premium pricing for things like LCD panels with custom resolutions aren't much of a premium price at a manufacturing level at the production volumes being attained. Not enough to realistically justify the significant price premium at the retail level. This absolutely includes PC devices such as the Surface.

So then, why do these companies charge so much?
That answer is simple: because their shillful die-hards will open their wallets and pay, without giving it a second thought.

How do I know this?
Equally easy answer: I worked supply chain for a Fortune 500 PC company that I was at for 11 years, in which everything being made was done so in China and Mexico after mass US workforce reductions and plant closures.
 
No...those higher costs "magically" become associated with brand name.

I assure you that the premium pricing for things like LCD panels with custom resolutions aren't much of a premium price at a manufacturing level at the production volumes being attained. Not enough to realistically justify the significant price premium at the retail level. This absolutely includes PC devices such as the Surface.
It's not any "one" component. It's "every" component. Every component costs more and when discussing 1000's of parts it adds up.
So then, why do these companies charge so much?
That answer is simple: because their shillful die-hards will open their wallets and pay, without giving it a second thought.
Apple definitely has better margins than most if not all PC manufacturers. But just because Apple doesn't have paper thin margins doesn't magically mean everything else I said isn't true.

If anything the M1 and subsequent ARM chips are going to show who is the real diehards. The M1 is already making it painful for every PC laptop and desktop under $1000. But despite M1 costing less than basically any PC and being 2x-4x as performative in a tremendous amount of productivity workloads, I'm sure you'll continue to buy a PC.
The great irony of everyone claiming that Apple people are "sheep" is that those individuals are way more entrenched in their own position and would likely NEVER change their mind under any circumstance. The fact that anyone 'defaults' to buying a PC without any consideration shows they're more or less the same as the so-called "Apple Diehards" that you look down on.
How do I know this?
Equally easy answer: I worked supply chain for a Fortune 500 PC company that I was at for 11 years, in which everything being made was done so in China and Mexico after mass US workforce reductions and plant closures.
Great. I worked at UPS for 6 years inside operations (doing management), that doesn't mean I understand everything about Amazon's business model or logistics. And that's a Fortune 100 company currently ranked at #33, and their industry rank inside of logistics is #1. Again, not that that means anything at all.

The bottom line is this: if Apple's hardware was so easy to duplicate, every PC manufacturer should do it and then race to the bottom like they always do. If Acer or MSI could engineer something to the level of a Macbook, they should, and then sell it for 20-30% less and undercut Apple from the market. Because their hardware costs the same right? That's been your whole argument this whole time? That plastic = aluminimum. That custom engineered haptic engines are the same thing as the OEM parts bin, that multi-microphones, and better audio engineering is the same as as cheap components, IPS=TN, Retina Display=1080p, and Thunderbolt 3/4 (which should be as simple as throwing a chip on a board right?) can just be given away en mass because it has the same costs of regular other IO (for some reason no PC manufacturer has put more than 1 Thunderbolt port on a laptop as far as I know, they have REALLY been cheating their users), that membrane keyboards=switch keyboards, that garbage unusable trackpads = highly engineered with haptic track-pads w/ multi-touch, using multiple wi-fi and bluetooth antennas and bands is the same as less, that adopting newer standards faster is the same as being slow and perhaps never adopting newer standards. All of it apparently is equivalent in both engineering and cost.

And this is ignoring things like Apple's M1. PC manufacturers are 90% of the market. They should've made their own hardware and software transitions already - something Apple has as minority stake leader has done themselves. Where is Dell's OS and their custom chips? While we're saying all R&D costs are the same (because you just blanketed over that) where is Dell's custom hardware and software? Shouldn't they have already made x86 and Windows translation software already?

I guess PC manufacturers are the dumbest manufacturers on the planet. They could be making Macbooks for $500 but they refuse because they'd rather make crap and still have no margin - whereas they could be making something good and have the same level of margin according to you since apparently all hardware regardless of what it is costs the same. If that's the case then every PC manufacturer really does deserve to go out of business and they are deserving of every piece of derision they get. 20 years on and it's still basically impossible to find a single PC laptop with a decent trackpad. And Lenovo is apparently the only one that can make a keyboard worth a damn. But they all cost the same, so apparently Lenovo is the only one with any intelligence for touchpoints. For some reason Apple is the only one that can also actually manage to fully support their hardware for free for a year. Good luck on your return or repair with Asus. I could go on and on about PC crapboxes - if anything this tells me that PC manufacturers have every buyer fooled. Because their $500-$1000 crapboxes could have had 4x the engineering and at least 2x as good hardware for the same price while the manufacturer makes the same amount of money, they could actually have custom hardware and software. What a disgrace.
 
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The bottom line is this: if Apple's hardware was so easy to duplicate, every PC manufacturer should do it and then race to the bottom like they always do.

They could. They can't demand the price and therefore the margins that Apple can in order to make it viable business model. So, they don't.
 
They could. They can't demand the price and therefore the margins that Apple can in order to make it viable business model. So, they don't.
Again, then they should and go to having the same razor thin margins they already do and undercut Apple by 20% or whatever. So either they are stupid or they can't do it or this costs more than either you or DejaWiz are willing to admit as obviously the PC market is also competing with themselves just as much as they are with Apple.

You can either build crap and compete for the bottom or you can build something fantastic and compete for the bottom and they according to you and DejaWiz they "cost the same" (as apparently you didn't disagree with literally any of those points) it seems to me one has a competitive advantage and the other doesn't. So either your math doesn't add up or you don't have an argument. Either way it makes no sense logically.

If Hyundai could build a Porshe Carrera for 30k because for some reason it costs as much as a Sonata in terms of R&D, engineer, manufacturing, and materials they would. This is literally the same argument that you and Deja Wiz are making when you say all of this stuff costs the same. There is ZERO incentive for Hyundai to NOT do this. They would love to eat all of Porshe's market and for far less. So again, either it actually costs more to make a Carrera or it doesn't. Either more engineering, more expensive parts, and more expensive materials has to go into it or it doesn't - either all the custom hardware in the Carrera costs more or it doesn't. If that wasn't the case Hyundai would just build a Carrera and Porshe would cease to exist as a company. "Halo product" or not. High margin or not. Hyundai couldn't care less about brand equity just as much as Acer couldn't care less about brand equity or making "halo product margins". They build a Carrera for half the cost and they win. Hell at that point Hyundai would gain an insane amount of brand equity, because again they produced a $100k car for $30k. They made a luxury sports car for pennies on the dollar. They wouldn't be able to manufacture them fast enough.
 
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But despite M1 costing less than basically any PC and being 2x-4x as performative in a tremendous amount of productivity workloads, I'm sure you'll continue to buy a PC.
A Macbook that's ten times as faster as the fastest PC at half the price is a thing without value if you have software that doesn't run on MacOS. (Not disputing the absolute value of the M1, just the relative value in certain dimensions.)
 
Again, then they should and go to having the same razor thin margins they already do and undercut Apple by 20% or whatever. So either they are stupid or they can't do it or this costs more than either you or DejaWiz are willing to admit.

You can either build crap and compete for the bottom or you can build something fantastic and compete for the bottom and they according to you and DejaWiz "cost the same" (as apparently you didn't disagree with literally any of those points) it seems to me one has a competitive advantage and the other doesn't. So either your math doesn't add up or you don't have an argument. Either way it makes no sense logically.

If Hyundai could build a Porshe Carrera for 30k because for some reason it costs as much as a Sonata they would. This is literally the same argument that you and Deja Wiz are making when you say all of this stuff costs the same. There is ZERO incentive for Hyundai to NOT do this. They would love to eat all of Porshe's market and for far less. So again, either it actually costs more to make a Carrera or it doesn't. Either more engineering, more expensive parts, and more expensive materials has to go into it or it doesn't. If that wasn't the case they would just do it and Porshe would cease to exist as a product. "Halo product" or not. High margin or not. Hyundai couldn't care less about brand equity just as much as Acer couldn't care less about brand equity. They build a Carrera for half the cost and they win. Hell at that point Hyundai would gain an insane amount of brand equity, because again they produced a $100k car for $30k. They made a luxury sports car for pennies on the dollar. They wouldn't be able to manufacture them fast enough.

Hey, we all get it: you love your Apple products and will shill like hell in order to justify the price tags.

Nobody is saying that you should give up the brand, and if their products work for your needs and you are willing to pay their prices, then nobody here can nor will stop you.

They're overpriced made in China junk, just like about every other OEM personal computer.
 
A Macbook that's ten times as faster as the fastest PC at half the price is a thing without value if you have software that doesn't run on MacOS. (Not disputing the absolute value of the M1, just the relative value in certain dimensions.)
On this we agree. But if that ever comes to pass, as a software manufacturer and engineer, you'd have to be absolutely stupid to not be on that platform at that point.
Hey, we all get it: you love your Apple products and will shill like hell in order to justify the price tags.

Nobody is saying that you should give up the brand, and if their products work for your needs and you are willing to pay their prices, then nobody here can nor will stop you.

They're overpriced made in China junk, just like about every other OEM personal computer.
Cool so you have no argument. We could've just started there.
 
Hey, we all get it: you love your Apple products and will shill like hell in order to justify the price tags.

Nobody is saying that you should give up the brand, and if their products work for your needs and you are willing to pay their prices, then nobody here can nor will stop you.

They're overpriced made in China junk, just like about every other OEM personal computer.
I can’t agree with the junk part, the Mac’s I have easily outlast their PC counterparts. I can bring in 200, $800 laptops from Dell, HP, or Lenovo and after 4 years they are “slow” and falling apart hinges going cracks along mild lines parts of the case separating that sort of stuff. I can bring in 200 MBP’s for $1000 (this is all CDN $) and 7 years in they have some scratches and a few dents but are otherwise going strong with their users not wanting an upgrade because they are still happy. The costs on my Apples at this stage spread over 5 years is far better than any of my PC’s to a degree to which we are seriously having to consider if we can make the transition from PC to Mac for the bulk of our staff. Then just lean more into Citrix for the few systems that just won’t port or bringing in PC’s for those few individuals.
 
On this we agree. But if that ever comes to pass, as a software manufacturer and engineer, you'd have to be absolutely stupid to not be on that platform at that point.

Cool so you have no argument. We could've just started there.

I have plenty of argument, being as I custom configured Macs for various customers since the PowerPC days, plus know the ins and outs of Chinese build houses.

It's quite clear that you won't listen no matter what, though.

Enjoy your Apple products.
 
I have plenty of argument, being as I custom configured Macs for various customers since the PowerPC days, plus know the ins and outs of Chinese build houses.
Great? Having any information about anything that Apple has been doing for the last 15 years? PPC to Intel happened literally in 2006. Or are you saying I should compare the Intel Pentium 4 to the M1 Mac, because that's just as relevant?
It's quite clear that you won't listen no matter what, though.
You have addressed literally zero of my points. So you have had no arguments about any of them including engineering, R&D, or materials cost. Basically all you've said is: "they all cost the same" which is categorically not true and is demonstrably not true and also demonstrates by your standards that PC OEM's are idiots, incompetent, or both (or hey the third option of there actually might be a cost difference in addition to halo product pricing).
Enjoy your Apple products.
But as another way of saying this, every PC component that is built whether OEM or not comes from China and/or Taiwan. So I guess all your rigs in your sig are basically garbage as well - as up to this point the only argument you have is that it's built in China so therefore it's "trash" and "it all costs the same". I guess MSI totally fleeced you on that Motherboard and Graphics card you bought. Don't you know it's the same thing as a $100 motherboard? You spent extra on your graphics card, guess you got fleeced there too. Enjoy your "overpriced made in China junk".

Feel free to ignore every other person also saying this contrary to you as well like Lakados above. As more or less "ignoring" arguments is the only thing you can really do apparently at this point.
 
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I can’t agree with the junk part, the Mac’s I have easily outlast their PC counterparts. I can bring in 200, $800 laptops from Dell, HP, or Lenovo and after 4 years they are “slow” and falling apart hinges going cracks along mild lines parts of the case separating that sort of stuff. I can bring in 200 MBP’s for $1000 (this is all CDN $) and 7 years in they have some scratches and a few dents but are otherwise going strong with their users not wanting an upgrade because they are still happy. The costs on my Apples at this stage spread over 5 years is far better than any of my PC’s to a degree to which we are seriously having to consider if we can make the transition from PC to Mac for the bulk of our staff. Then just lean more into Citrix for the few systems that just won’t port or bringing in PC’s for those few individuals.

Well, I have a 8 year old Asus laptop with an i5-3210M still going strong. The only upgrades I've done are doubling the RAM to 8GB, replaced the 750GB HDD with a 500GB SSD, and replaced the single band WLAN with a dual band.
Running Win10 20H2 without a hitch. Even runs my older GOG games just fine when I'm traveling.

I just did inventory at work today - 5+ year old laptops and desktops just brought back from deployment due to asset life cycling, about 120 of them, all but 4 work. Granted most have spindle drives and only 4GB RAM, but they still power up and run just fine.

We can go back and forth on this for eternity using subjective opinions and personal examples, but neither of us will have a changed mind. I'm OK with that. You are entitled to your opinions and viewpoints, no matter how differing they are.

Enjoy your Apple products.
 
Again, then they should and go to having the same razor thin margins they already do and undercut Apple by 20% or whatever. So either they are stupid or they can't do it or this costs more than either you or DejaWiz are willing to admit as obviously the PC market is also competing with themselves just as much as they are with Apple.

Why? Razor thin margins on a small volume product because they don't have the same perceived value or razor thin margins on high volume products. If you can't figure out why their business model is what it is then you just aren't doing the math. It is literally not worth the opportunity cost to chase that market. They could, Apple doesn't do anything magical, but it is bad business for all but one company.
 
Why? Razor thin margins on a small volume product because they don't have the same perceived value or razor thin margins on high volume products. If you can't figure out why their business model is what it is then you just aren't doing the math. It is literally not worth the opportunity cost to chase that market. They could, Apple doesn't do anything magical, but it is bad business for all but one company.
Again, your argument is, it costs the same amount of money whether they make a halo product or a garbage product so there is zero cost reason to not make a halo product. Then you charge the same amount of money as you normally would with the same margin and you make just as much money. It's no longer a "halo" product. It's just a product at that point. Then you eat the market from every other PC vendor who apparently can't figure out how to do this. Your product is better, it doesn't suck, and lasts longer than any of your competitors - therefore you win. Every reviewer on the planet remarks that your product costs the same amount as Dell, Acer, HP, whoever and for some reason is engineered twice as good. Either all of this is the same or it isn't. You're unwilling to admit there are other costs associated with making a better product and therefore THAT is the reason why they don't do this.

You want Math? Then let's take any vendor. They sell a garbage product for $500. But you're saying an Apple $1000 product costs just as much to make as a $500 "no name" vendor product. Let's just say both the no name vendor product and the Apple product both cost $400 to make. The No Name brand then makes the 'Halo' product (the EXACT same one that Apple sells for $1000), and charge $500 for and make the same margin (because you're saying it costs the same in terms of R&D, engineering, manufacturing, and materials as apparently both the $500 and $1000 product in this scenario both cost $400 to make). The no name brand makes THE SAME MARGIN as they did before and it costs them THE SAME AMOUNT to make and they have a product as good as something that costs them twice as much. Literally how does this math not work? Again, because you're unwilling to admit that there are other costs associated with doing this.
There is literally no reason for Acer or whoever to make a $500 machine that is every bit as good as Apple's $1000 if it costs them the same amount of money to make either way. They make the same margin as they are RIGHT NOW and have a product that would wreck every other vendor in the space. At that point it's not a "halo product" in terms or pricing, it's just their product that they sell that's better than everyone else. You have no argument for this. You keep saying it over and over without actually understanding the implications.

Again, reread my Hyundai vs Porshe analogy. If Hyundai can build a Carrera for the same cost as a Sonata, they would. And they would eat that space. They would build a Lamborgini and a Ferrari for the same cost too. Buggati charges a million dollars for a Chiron, but Hyundai can sell it for $30k? There is no way that Bugatti would exist any more. They could eat every other luxury car market too. Build a Lexas or Mercedes for a fraction of the cost. Either these two things aren't equal or they are. I keep saying they aren't equal, you keep saying they are. There is zero logic to what you're saying.
 
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Apple sucks balls and is overpriced. Its the same reason why my Casio wristwatch is equal to a Rolex. Both give me the information I need. But one does it cheaper.
 
I can’t agree with the junk part, the Mac’s I have easily outlast their PC counterparts. I can bring in 200, $800 laptops from Dell, HP, or Lenovo and after 4 years they are “slow” and falling apart hinges going cracks along mild lines parts of the case separating that sort of stuff. I can bring in 200 MBP’s for $1000 (this is all CDN $) and 7 years in they have some scratches and a few dents but are otherwise going strong with their users not wanting an upgrade because they are still happy. The costs on my Apples at this stage spread over 5 years is far better than any of my PC’s to a degree to which we are seriously having to consider if we can make the transition from PC to Mac for the bulk of our staff. Then just lean more into Citrix for the few systems that just won’t port or bringing in PC’s for those few individuals.
This is exactly what I saw at the university I worked at over a decade ago.
The Dell workstations and laptops were good, but could never withstand the test of time that all of our Apple workstations, laptops, and all-in-ones had.

By the end, the only Apple systems we were actively replacing were the by-then older PowerPC models in favour of the x86 and x86-64 models due to lack of software support.
The systems themselves are still going strong.

Not to say there aren't outliers for PCs and other computer systems, but most of them do not have the physical durability of Apple systems.
In fact, most Apple system I have seen fail have been due to failing capacitors or VRMs on their motherboards, and not from physical damage; definitely can't say that about Dell, HP, ASUS, and Acer PCs, at least on average.
 
Apple sucks balls and is overpriced. Its the same reason why my Casio wristwatch is equal to a Rolex. Both give me the information I need. But one does it cheaper.
Sure. If a Civic is the same as a Lamborghini to you and give you the same amount of utility then fine.
If the utility of being twice as fast and costing half as much means nothing then that's okay too. You can be as arbitrary as you want.
But to say there are no differences at all or that there isn't a cost difference due to again, materials, r&d, engineering, or in the case of Rolex branding is also untrue.
Not caring is one thing. That's totally fine as a choice to make. But to say they are equivalent is as absurd as saying that a microwave is the same as a car because they both have clocks.
 
Sure. If a Civic is the same as a Lamborghini to you and give you the same amount of utility then fine.
If the utility of being twice as fast and costing half as much means nothing then that's okay too. You can be as arbitrary as you want.
I'd love own a Lamborghini, it would be a nice down payment on a house & put a new Civic in its driveway :)
 
Apple sucks balls and is overpriced. Its the same reason why my Casio wristwatch is equal to a Rolex. Both give me the information I need. But one does it cheaper.
ptacasio.gif
haha, I would rather go with a Casio as well.
As for Apple, as a megacorp they are kicking ass and taking names, but morally and ethically... they're a megacorp. :D
 
Again, your argument is, it costs the same amount of money whether they make a halo product or a garbage product so there is zero cost reason to not make a halo product. Then you charge the same amount of money as you normally would with the same margin and you make just as much money. It's no longer a "halo" product. It's just a product at that point. Then you eat the market from every other PC vendor who apparently can't figure out how to do this. Your product is better, it doesn't suck, and lasts longer than any of your competitors - therefore you win. Every reviewer on the planet remarks that your product costs the same amount as Dell, Acer, HP, whoever and for some reason is engineered twice as good. Either all of this is the same or it isn't. You're unwilling to admit there are other costs associated with making a better product and therefore THAT is the reason why they don't do this.

You want Math? Then let's take any vendor. They sell a garbage product for $500. But you're saying an Apple $1000 product costs just as much to make as a $500 "no name" vendor product. Let's just say both the no name vendor product and the Apple product both cost $400 to make. The No Name brand then makes the 'Halo' product (the EXACT same one that Apple sells for $1000), and charge $500 for and make the same margin (because you're saying it costs the same in terms of R&D, engineering, manufacturing, and materials as apparently both the $500 and $1000 product in this scenario both cost $400 to make). The no name brand makes THE SAME MARGIN as they did before and it costs them THE SAME AMOUNT to make and they have a product as good as something that costs them twice as much. Literally how does this math not work? Again, because you're unwilling to admit that there are other costs associated with doing this.
There is literally no reason for Acer or whoever to make a $500 machine that is every bit as good as Apple's $1000 if it costs them the same amount of money to make either way. They make the same margin as they are RIGHT NOW and have a product that would wreck every other vendor in the space. At that point it's not a "halo product" in terms or pricing, it's just their product that they sell that's better than everyone else. You have no argument for this. You keep saying it over and over without actually understanding the implications.

Again, reread my Hyundai vs Porshe analogy. If Hyundai can build a Carrera for the same cost as a Sonata, they would. And they would eat that space. They would build a Lamborgini and a Ferrari for the same cost too. Buggati charges a million dollars for a Chiron, but Hyundai can sell it for $30k? There is no way that Bugatti would exist any more. They could eat every other luxury car market too. Build a Lexas or Mercedes for a fraction of the cost. Either these two things aren't equal or they are. I keep saying they aren't equal, you keep saying they are. There is zero logic to what you're saying.

No, what I said in the very beginning that kills your entire idea is "They could. They can't demand the price and therefore the margins that Apple can in order to make it viable business model. So, they don't." It is very simple.
 
Apple sucks balls and is overpriced. Its the same reason why my Casio wristwatch is equal to a Rolex. Both give me the information I need. But one does it cheaper.

Between a Casio and Rolex I'd go with the Casio also. Now a Breitling........or if I'm going to hit the top of Rolex's line a Patek. Yes please.
 
No, what I said in the very beginning that kills your entire idea is "They could. They can't demand the price and therefore the margins that Apple can in order to make it viable business model. So, they don't." It is very simple.
Again, that makes no sense. If they could they would. This is what is called "disruption" in the market place. This is SpaceX making rockets instead of Nasa. This is personal computing over mainframes. This is phones with more power than a PC and the size of a calculator.

If I could make a Mac today for half the cost and make the same margin as a PC manufacturer I would. I would literally be a billionaire in two years. I would eat the entire PC market. I would take all of that 90% share that Dell, HP, Acer, MSI, and Asus are too complacent to move on. I would eat all of Google's Chromebook space, because I would literally out sell them all with a product that's twice as good that costs the same. I would take every piece of their business because why would you buy any competitor at that point as their stuff would be garbage in comparison and cost the same amount as what I'm selling.
 
It makes no sense to you because you don't run a business.
Again.
Crap Product costs $400 to make and is sold for $500.
Halo Product costs $400 to make and is sold for $1000.

Crap product then makes Halo product for $400 and sells for $500.

There is no way that Halo product can continue to exist. This is called disruption. This is called Mathematics. I guess something you don't understand.
Margin of $100 still = $100. Costs $400 still = $400. All else is equal. Advertisement: "Crap product is every bit as good as Halo product for half the cost." You're a bad businessman/woman if you AREN'T doing this.
And yes, I run my own business.
 
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If I could make a Mac today for half the cost and make the same margin as a PC manufacturer I would. I would literally be a billionaire in two years. I would eat the entire PC market. I would take all of that 90% share that Dell, HP, Acer, MSI, and Asus are too complacent to move on. I would eat all of Google's Chromebook space, because I would literally out sell them all with a product that's twice as good that costs the same.
That's assuming a competing company wouldn't quash you and your operation out right, and/or not stifle innovation and execution through legal interventions and existing contracts.
Look what Intel did to AMD, an already established company, in the mid-2000s.

Now you, a single individual, are going up against one of the most powerful megacorps in the world to sell your innovation?
Maybe in a Capitalist-driven world of old you could do what you are saying, but not in the modern Corporatist 21st century of today.

At best, you might be lucky if Apple gives you an offer to legally purchase your innovation.
A billionaire in two years in an existing and mature market and industry filled with anti-consumerist competitors - that's hilarious!
 
That's assuming a competing company wouldn't quash you and your operation out right, and/or not stifle innovation and execution through legal interventions and existing contracts.
Look what Intel did to AMD, an already established company, in the mid-2000s.

Now you, a single individual, are going up against one of the most powerful megacorps in the world to sell your innovation?
Maybe in a Capitalist-driven world of old you could do what you are saying, but not in the modern Corporatist 21st century of today.

At best, you might be lucky if Apple gives you an offer to legally purchase your innovation.
I don't dispute any of that. But this whole discussion has spawned from this ridiculous and insane idea that there are no such thing as R&D, engineering, or materials costs.
Bottom line again, if a company could do the same stuff for less they would. And it doesn't matter what industry we're talking about.

In the case of SpaceX it was literally launching crap into space vs Nasa or Bowing etc. Heck Elon is attempting to do it again with satelites for internet. And guess what, if he can make a product that competes with Cable or DSL, make it available globally, and do it for less and eat every ISP's lunch he can and he will.
Again if I had the capacity to do this in the PC arena, you'd better believe I'd be the number one seller and a billionaire in two years. But for some reason people can't get it through their thick ears that if that was remotely possible someone would do it, or actually admit that these things have costs associated with them.
 
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I don't dispute any of that. But this whole discussion has spawned from this ridiculous and insane idea that there are no such thing as R&D, engineering, or materials costs.
Bottom line again, if a company could do the same stuff for less they would. And it doesn't matter what industry we're talking about.
Fully agreed, I don't think that point is really being understood, either, and that is a large part of those high costs.
Eventually down the road those costs might be recouped, but at the beginning of a new product's lifecycle, the high costs are commanded in order to recoup said R&D costs.
 
Again.
Crap Product costs $400 to make and is sold for $500.
Halo Product costs $400 to make and is sold for $1000.

Crap product then makes Halo product for $400 and sells for $500.

There is no way that Halo product can continue to exist. This is called disruption. This is called Mathematics. I guess something you don't understand.
Margin of $100 still = $100. Costs $400 still = $400. All else is equal. Advertisement: "Crap product is every bit as good as Halo product for half the cost." You're a bad businessman/woman if you AREN'T doing this.
And yes, I run my own business.

Your own arguments involving cars prove your thesis wrong. Halo products exist because of the perceived value and the branding. You really don't understand business.
 
Your own arguments involving cars prove your thesis wrong. Halo products exist because of the perceived value and the branding. You really don't understand business.
This is true as well, and is a major factor in marketing and sales.
The best product in the world won't sell unless it is marketed properly, at least to the average masses and customer-base.
 
Your own arguments involving cars prove your thesis wrong. Halo products exist because of the perceived value and the branding. You really don't understand business.
Not that this has any relevance, but my two degrees are literally in business.

This shows you have zero understanding of buyer behavior. Calling something a "Halo Product" is irrelevant for literally all of our discussions. There is a meaningful difference between a Mac and other products beyond branding. Just like there is a meaningful difference between a Carrera and a Civic.
If you can't understand how the Carrera's ability to turn greater than 1G or have a a 0-60 mph time of 4 seconds and a 1/4 mile time of under 10 seconds or whatever it is is relevant to the car and the costs of said car in terms of engineering, R&D, and materials then this is a discussion not worth having. We could for the sake of example remove ALL of the branding from ALL of the cars.
If you still say a Civic has literally the same cost as a Carrera then it's you whom don't understand the space. And in that space even if we brought back branding, if Hyundai could produce a 700HP super car that was 10x better than a Ferrari and costs as much as a Sonata, it wouldn't matter how much of a halo product the Ferrari is. Ferrari would be humiliated as a Hyundai ran laps around them at Le Mans in their "cheap car" and Hyundai would have perceived value overnight as again we're equating that these cars are and could be equally as good (or in that case, better).

Referring to the PC space again, a $500 Acer isn't equivalent in any way shape or form to a $1000 Macbook other than that they are both computing devices. To say that they are engineered the same, have the same level of R&D, or materials costs is again unequivocalbly untrue. If Acer could build a Macbook level machine for $400 (referring back to my earlier diagram) and sell it for $500 they absolutely should even if they never call it "a halo product" because it would be substantively different from every other machine in its class. It's this fundamental principle that you continue to refuse to address that makes all of your arguments make zero sense. This is especially true if their current not nearly as good machine costs the exact same amount of money to make as the more expensive machine.

But the fact is, basically every PC laptop under $1000 is garbage. And Apple runs laps around them all in terms of power, battery life, and basically every form of functionality outside of gaming. And there is a substantive difference between a $1000 M1 Macbook and every $500-$1000 PC far beyond branding whether you want to admit it or not. Just like there is a substantive difference between a Carrera and a Civic far beyond the branding whether you want to admit that or not.
 
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Well, I have a 8 year old Asus laptop with an i5-3210M still going strong. The only upgrades I've done are doubling the RAM to 8GB, replaced the 750GB HDD with a 500GB SSD, and replaced the single band WLAN with a dual band.
Running Win10 20H2 without a hitch. Even runs my older GOG games just fine when I'm traveling.

I just did inventory at work today - 5+ year old laptops and desktops just brought back from deployment due to asset life cycling, about 120 of them, all but 4 work. Granted most have spindle drives and only 4GB RAM, but they still power up and run just fine.

We can go back and forth on this for eternity using subjective opinions and personal examples, but neither of us will have a changed mind. I'm OK with that. You are entitled to your opinions and viewpoints, no matter how differing they are.

Enjoy your Apple products.
That's great for those Acers, but I've got 12 years of accounting data showing that in our cases that our PC's by the time I have MDM, AV, and Backup software in their + time required to deal with user issues are undeniably more expensive than our Mac purchases spread over their lifetime. A conclusion similarly reached by a very large part of the Educational system which is why they are so prevalent there. This was a similar conclusion reached by IBM who found that purchasing and maintaining Apple devices was almost half the cost of their existing Linux-based PC platforms they were running previously. I'm obviously not bringing in Apples at this stage for heavy workstations and we're not even going to pretend that Apple Server is a viable anything, but in the hands of users, the data shows them cheaper over their full lifespan. That said I like my Dell G5's I bring in for my department because it's now also my department's responsibility to deal with the security cameras on the busses and buildings so I am constantly having to re-encode and video and I totally need a laptop with a 2080 for that, so much faster...

"At IBM, one of the largest Apple-using companies with 290,000 Apple devices, a 2016 study found that the company was saving up to $543 per Mac compared to PCs over a 4-year lifespan. Forrester Research came up with an even higher number, showing that Macs cost $628 less over a 3-year lifespan."
https://mbsdirect.com/mbs-blog/arti...ext=At IBM, one of the,over a 3-year lifespan.
 
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