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?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
by Charles W. Moore
It’s a jolly good thing that Leopard is a smash-hit, with two million copies sold over the first weekend, and the Mac OS remains a compelling reason for buying the Mac, because I’ve given up arguing hardware value with price-conscious prospective notebook buyers.
I mean, here in Canada where the cheapest MacBook still sells for Can$1,249.00, even though the Canadian dollar is at this writing worth U.S.$1.05, Dell is happy to sell you an Inspiron 1420 with a Core 2 Duo processor, a 14.1-inch display, two gigs of RAM, and a 120 gigabyte hard drive for Can$899.00 Actually, if you’re a real penny-pincher, right now you can get an Inspiron 1520 with a dual-core Pentium, an a 15.4-inch display for Can$749.00, and Dell has even cheaper laptops than that available.
Now the Inspiron isn’t a Mac, and there is scientific evidence that Apple makes the highest-quality personal computers in the industry. Computerworld reported this week that in a survey by Rescuecom Corp., a national chain of computer service shops, Macs beat machines built and sold by Lenovo Group Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., Gateway Inc. and Dell by a wide margin, posting a score of 51% higher than next-best Lenovo. Macs made up only 1.4% of all calls to Rescuecom, even though its estimated market share was 5% for the year (probably a low estimate - Gartner says 8%), while Dell machines' dependability pretty much tracked its proportionate market share.
The there's Dell's typically plain-vanilla styling, which is inoffensive, but notwithstanding the name - uninspiring. However, the plain- Jane generic laptop books are mitigated considerably by the machine’s availability 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.
Colorful computers used to bee Apple’s thing, and Steve Jobs evidently you thought it was a good idea and back in the late ‘90s. While the aluminum, white, or black looks are tasteful and the MacBook/MacBook Pro styling much more distinctively handsome than that of the Dells, it’s getting more than an a bit same old, and aluminum anodizing can be done in color s as well as natural metal. Makes you ruminate on the possibilities.
Anyway, when you tell a non Mac-cognizenti that the best Apple will do on a machine with the same processor, half as much RAM, and a smaller screen than that Core 2 Duo Inspiron is Can$1,250, they just roll their eyes. Dell will sell you a 17-inch display Inspiron 1720 with a 160 gigabyte hard drive for fifty bucks less than that. Apple’s cheapest 17-incher sells for Can$3,099.00. How much better can the Mac OS be?
Well, enough better, in my estimation, to keep me in a Mac, but what if you could have less expensive PC hardware and still run Leopard? Actually, you can. A day after Leopard was released, a friend of mine phoned to say that she had it up and running on her 2.6 GHz Pentium IV desktop box, and running very well too. She’s had Tiger installed for a year, and is able to dual=boot from either it or Windows XP as need be. She reports that Leopard is even faster than Tiger was on the middle-aged Pentium hardware.
Now, this person is a consummate fan of the Mac OS from way back, but has been going through a rough patch patch financially for the past couple of years. The old Pentium was a gift from someone who had moved on to newer hardware, as is the PC laptop that she uses. However, her experience running Tiger, and now Leopard, on this less-than-cutting-edge PC hardware has convinced her that when she does buy a new computer, it will likely be a PC, on which she;ll just hack an OS X install.
This is absolutely why Apple refuses to commercially port OS X to the PC platform, and of course hacking installs on PCs is a violation of the Apple EULA. It’s not something I would recommend. HOwever, it’s becoming a lot more common since Apple switched to Intel processors, and Leopard had barely been on the streets for a day before Hacked PC installs like my friends were being reported.
Unauthorized install hacks are still enough of a hassle that Apple probably doesn’t need to worry overmuch - yet. However, the popularity of unlocking iPhones demonstrates that once these procedures become accessible enough, they can take on a life of their own. My hacker friend, a longtime Mac evangelist, is now recommending to folks that seek her advice on computer purchases to buy a PC and she will help them install OS X on it.
Apple is still selling a ton of computers and gaining market share. In its last fiscal quarter, the companyh sold morethan 2 million Macs, and technology research firm Gartner Inc. reports that Apple now has about 8% of the U.S. PC market. But if Dell can sell decent-although-not-quite-as-good quality laptops for 30-50 percent less with more or higher-spec. standard equipment and features, then there seems no logical reason why Apple can’t sharpen its pencils a bit as well, especially here in Canada, where, based on simple exchange rate conversion, the base 2.0 GHz white MacBook should be selling north of the border for $1,046, and not $1,250. It’s been about six weeks now since the Canadian dollar hit par prior with the greenback, and I can’t believe that there is much stock on hand that was purchased prior to that. If they continue to stonewall dropping system prices, it begins to smack of profiteering and gouging, as well a a lot of lost potential sales.
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