Is Apple In Danger Of Losing Its Obvious Superiority Edge?
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
by Charles W. Moore
I have to say I’m disappointed that Leopard is not more compelling. There are many cool and interesting things about it, for example Time Machine, Spaces, and Cover Flow, which are all solid and useful enhancements, but then there is the other stuff, like crippling Leopard’s ability to support normal, hierarchical folders in the Dock (which was one of the few things I liked about the Dock) in favor of the brain-dead “Stacks: feature, and the general bugginess and crankiness if the OS, at least in my experience so far. Instead of being the outside-the-park home run we had been hoping for, Leopard is more like a bloop infield double.
Some perspective must be applied. Other Mac OS Version Upgrades have gotten off to a shaky start, Indeed the early builds of OS 10.4 Tiger, which has become a smooth and stable rock of a performer, were more than a bit ragged around the edges. I even downgraded my Pismo to OS 10.3 Panther for a few months until Apple got Tiger sorted out, but since about version 10.4.6 it’s been great.
If you’re a Mac veteran like me, you probably recall that System 7.5 was a finicky critter at the first going off, especially the version 7.5.2 that shipped with the PowerBook 5300, and which rightly has to share a lot of the blame for the troubles users of that machine experienced. System 7.5 settled down nicely with the 7.5.3 bugfix build, and even more with the ultimate version 7.5.5 and the stopgap System 7.6 which made a brief appearance prior to the release of OS 8.
Unfortunately, the Leopard OS 7.5.1 update didn’t seem to help much on my PowerBook. My Leopard ride so far has been a distinctly mixed bag, and that’s putting it kindly.
Consequently, at this point, Leopard is not a big attraction for me in contemplating my next hardware system upgrade.
I’m somewhat overdue on making the transition to MacIntel. It’s been nearly two years since the MacBook Pro was introduced, and while my POwer PC 17” PowerBook G4 is a superb machine that owes me nothing at this point, better support of Leopard (hopefully - I’m seeing a disconcertingly large number of woeful reports from Leopard-users with MacIntels) might arguably be the tipping point catalyzing a hardware upgrade for me.
The problem is that I’m having trouble getting really excited about a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Don’t get me wrong; they’re both excellent computers, in some contexts arguably the best notebooks Apple ever shipped, especially in terms of power for your dollar. It’s just that they don’t seem to get my juices flowing the way some of their predecessors did - especially the PowerBook G3 Series, the 12” aluminum PowerBook, and even the dual-USB iBook, which wasn’t nearly as good a computer as the Apple MacIntel machines, but which has a certain je ne sais quoi quality about it that I don’t find, at least so far, in the Intel-based ‘Books.
Of the current fleet, I’m most smitten with the 17” Santa Rosa MacBook Pro with high resolution display, but unfortunately it’s out of my league price-wise, at least until more reasonably-priced refurbished units become available a year or two hence, and in any case, it’s almost a dead-ringer appearance-wise for my 17” PowerBook - a form factor that first was unveiled five years ago. There’s nothing wrong with it. Indeed it’s a very attractive, serviceable, and logical notebook computer design, but dare I say that I’m getting a wee bit bored with it?
Still, that’s not a deal-breaker for me. I’m a form-follows-function kind of guy, and actually, notwithstanding my enthusiastic affection for the Pismo PowerBook and its G3 Series older siblings, I’ve never been that taken with their styling. I just love their functionality, ease of service and upgrading, user-friendliness, reliability, versatility and connectivity, none of which have been matched by any subsequent Apple ‘Books in the seven years since the Pismo went out of production.
Is Apple, despite record sales, losing its superiority edge in the notebook market due to a slowdown in innovation and imagination, or just benign neglect?
This week, Microsoft Watch’s Joe Wilcox posted a piece about how he and his 13-year-old daughter I set out to replace her Revision A MacBook, and ended up with pink Sony VAIO running Windows Vista Home Premium. Say what?
Joe says it came down to value for the money and - gulp! - a lack of perceived advantage for buggy Leopard as opposed to Vista with a year of refinement and tuning behind it.
The value equation is hard to argue with. As Joe puts it: “Based on value for hardware, the Sony VAIO handily beat the MacBook.” Here are some examples of why:
Both machines had 2.2 GHz Intel processors, so that was a wash, but....
Display
MacBook - 13.3-inch glossy, 1280 x 800 resolution
VIAO - 14.1-inch glossy display, 1280 x 800 resolution
A bit of a saw-off there, but the Sony has a slight edge
Standard RAM
MacBook - 1 GB
VIAO - 2 GB
Slam-dunk for the VAIO on that one
Standard hard drive
MacBook - 120GB
VIAO - 200 GB
Ditto
Graphics support
MacBook - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (64MB, shared up to 144MB)
VIAO - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (128MB, shared up to 358MB)
Both units have compromised “vampire video,” but the Sony’s is less compromised, and its double the standard RAM gives it ample to work with
Ports
MacBook - Two USB ports; one FireWire
VIAO - Three USB ports; one FireWire
Advantage VAIO
In most other specification categories, the two notebooks are well-matched feature for feature, other than that the MacBook comes with an integrated iSight WebCam and the Sony doesn’t, the OS support differences (MacBook wins there, since it can run Windows but the Sony can’t (at least without EULA-busting hacking) run Leopard, and the available choice of colors, which in this particular instance carried some weight.
Joe Wilcox notes that Before Apple switched to Intel processors, this kind of Mac to Windows PC comparison would have been difficult. Oh, how have times changed. While the two computers use the same basic hardware architecture, for an extra $21, the VAIO comes with twice the system and video memory and 80GB more storage capacity. The VAIO’s extras appealed to my sense of value; my daughter liked the computer’s appearance more than the white MacBook.”
Joe says that his daughter was a bit worried that “young people think Macs are cool.” (how the landscape has shifted) But how many of her friends would have a pink laptop? Excellent point. I think Apple was on to something with colorful computers back in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, and had perhaps dwelt a bit too long in the land of conservatively tasteful but now a bit same-old, same/old white, black and metallic. Aluminum anodizing can be done in color as well as natural metal. Makes you ruminate on the possibilities.
Indeed, I explored some of these themes in my Hallowe’en column here “The Mac OS Is Still A Compelling Reason To Go Apple, But what If You Could Have Your Leopard Cake And Eat It On Cheaper PC Hardware?” noting that “ I’ve given up arguing Mac hardware value with price-conscious prospective notebook buyers.”
For instance, a Dell flyer that arrived with today’s newspaper has a 17” Inspiron 1720 laptop with a Core 2 Duo processor, 2 gigs of RAM, a 160 GB hard disk, SuperDrive, and free shipping for an astounding (at least for Mac folk) Can$899.00, in your choice of eight attractive colors. Jet Black with Matte Finish, Alpine White with Gloss Finish, Expresso Brown with Microsatin Finish, Ruby Red with Microsatin Finis, Midnight Blue with Microsatin Finish, Spring Green with Microsatin Finish, Flamingo Pink with Microsatin Finish, and Sunshine Yellow with Microsatin Finish. I think the Expresso Brown one is especially classy-looking.
Of course, I’ve always also been a sucker for Acer’s series of Ferrari-themed, AMD-powered notebooks in red, silver, and black Ferrari Formula One racer livery.
Anyway, by contrast, the cheapest Apple notebook you can buy is the entry-level MacBook , which is still selling in Canada for CAN$1,249.00, and if you want a 17-incher, it will set you back a kick-in-the-gut Can$3,099.00 - just short of three-and-a-half times as much as the 17” Dell. That’s of course a, well, Apples and Dells comparison, and the 17” Mac has a higher spec. on several counts, but not RAM or HD capacity still - three-and-a-half times as much??!
The compelling argument in favor of a Mac has always been the Mac OS, which you needed Mac hardware to run on. My admittedly brief encounters with Vista over the past year left me underwhelmed to say the least, and I’m not in any danger of defecting to the dark side, but it may be that with Leopard the Mac OS superiority isn’t quite as decisive as we would prefer it to be.
Regarding his daughter’s preference for the VAIO running Vista over a new MacBook running Leopard, Joe Wilcox allows that “six months earlier, I would have interceded. The Windows Vista experience was broken and Leopard promised so much. But now: Vista delivers a darn good experience, and Leopard isn’t such a cool cat after all. Between Leopard and Vista, I would pick Windows.
“My daughter chose neither. She ended up with the pink VAIO because she liked the laptop’s appearance more than the MacBook; she recognized the better value for base hardware; and she didn’t see any huge benefit to Leopard over Vista. Operating system was not much of a consideration at all.”
Ouch! - that hurts.
My next system will be a Mac, but Apple needs to take heed of my waning enthusiasm (well, I’m still really enthusiastic about my old Pismos and even my 17” PowerBook, which perhaps signalizes part of the operative problem here), and the testimony of a new generation of users like Joe’s daughter. A little more color and specification value for the money, Mr. Jobs.
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