Apple to Stop Making Computers
Cupertino, CA: A spokesperson for Apple has confirmed that indeed, as of the end of 2004, Apple Computers will stop production on all computers. This will include the end of production for the G5, iMac, eMac, iBook, and Powerbook product lines. This announcement comes with an initiative to full dedication towards producing the popular iPod as well software in their iLife suite of programs including the iTunes program, which includes the hugely successful iTunes Music Store feature. In addition, Apple has announced that they will continue to produce the iSight in an act of blatant stubbornness, despite the criticism that Apple is ahead of their time with the revolutionary product. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple stated in a recent interview that only a few factors contributed to this decision. He compared the critical comments towards the look of the new G5 computers as being like, “someone telling him his kid was ugly.” He also cited the difficulty in training Apple Store staff in the details of computers was becoming too much of a burden. After the announcement of this change, Apple’s stock (AAPL) tripled in value.
This is a fabricated press release. It is not too far fetched though. It seems these days that Apple cares more about the iPod than anything else. Can you blame them? The iPod is hugely successful. It only makes sense to go with the “hot hand”. And going with the hot hand they are. With the media blitz of iPod-only advertisement, it seems that Apple would rather hook people to one of their products than all. This is demonstrated by the release of iTunes for Windows and AOL. Apple makes a huge profit on the iPods. With the introduction of the mini-pods, they are proving once again that they are readily willing to continue updating the iPod line as they see fit.
So why should Apple waste R&D time and resources developing computers like the G5 which for anyone except the movie industry is way faster and powerful then we really need. Sure, I would love the speed of the G5, especially when opening a 900MB Photoshop file, but before the G5, I thought I had it pretty good with my dual-G4. Apple is getting too far ahead of their time again. Need I say anymore than “Newton”? They should slow down in upgrading processors and operating systems and let the general public, (when I say general public I mean the average home user not graphics, printing, and production professionals) catch up to them. If not, they are going to niche themselves out of the profitable demographic.
I don’t buy the idea that Apple computers are too expensive either. I just think they don’t give proper attention to marketing each model to their appropriate audience. Instead, they advertise the G5 as powerful. Well, to the average home user, what does that mean? According to Apple, powerful enough to blow a hole in the side of your house. Big deal. They need to market the G5 to professionals who require it.
But I know this will not happen, Apple will continue to make amazing computers. Apple every year will give me something new to drool over. I admit, I would miss the computer envy if it wasn’t there. I am just concerned that all signs are pushing towards an Apple that exists primarily to produce things for the computer user and not the computers themselves. And an Apple without computers is a sad thought.
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Slow down on producing faster processors? Yer and idiot. Faster processors give us things like faster rendering out of iMovie, or faster dvd creation from iDvd. These happen to be Apple’s flagship products and are used every day by Apple users. Now on the PC side, this speed helps too, there’s just no good tools to exploit it. So most users don’t do any of this content creation.
Speed is of the essance and was deperatly needed for Os X to even function well. Its also needed if they want to look more desirable to people contemplating a purchase from the PC side.
Slow down? God I hope not.
Jon, you make good points. Yes. G4 speed is needed for OSX to function well. G5 speed is just icing on the cake. The point I made in the article is the “average” home user will not justify paying 3 grand for a G5. And they shouldn’t. They simply do not need it.
I take it Gregory is not enthusiastic about games?
I believe that Apple’s hardware pricing strategy for… forever, has been to make a lot more money selling lower volume professional systems. Remember the 5 figure Quadra Tower price? Or the 5 figure 9600 Tower price?
The iMac and iPod margins are much thinner than the G5, and the G5 is for a locked in professional market - one that will upgrade every 1.5 years, and product revisions have to obey that upgrade cycle. I wouldn’t be surprised if the profit margin on the G5 is $600 for the 1.8 and 2.0 versions.
Booga, I tried getting into playing games, but it never lives up to the experienc eof playing games on Xbox or PS2. Even when hooking up a joystick I would rather be sitting on my couch playing on a big screen tv.
I agree with you Greg… Games are for loungin’ on the couch, not upright in a chair! Thats why I love that all the consoles have gone online now! I love online gaming.
But as you said that normal consumers don’t need the G5 power. I would agree with you, ifyou were talking about Windows users. They dont need the 3ghz power. But of course their computers don’t come with iMovie or iDvd. In fact they dont have much choice at all for easy to use software for editing home movies, so…. theyjust dont do it.
On the Mac side though, these products ship with every computer. They are easy enough that my mother uses them, and they are targeted at normal home users. So normal users DO use them. And when it comes to video, its going to be a long time before cpu speed DOESN’T matter. Its pretty much the only thing thats pushing cpu speeds right now. That and games…
ack - a game pad is useless for third-person and first-person pov games. But Mariocart is awesome with a game pad.
when will they offer a trackball and game-keyboard for the consoles?
I beg to differ on the iMovie and iDVD requiring faster processors. AfterEffects just flies on a G4, and that is a pro-level application. Sure effects that are CPU bound can always use the extra speed - but what is most important is a fast UI - and the metal UI is not fast. This is code problem, and not cpu.
I used a G5 in the Apple Store - and you know what? iTunes window resize still wasn’t keeping up with the cursor!
Now that folks, is unbelievable.
and oh my - have you tried scrolling a Mac Office Word document? Word docs w/ hundreds of pages scroll end to end on a wimpy PC in mere seconds… while my fit and trim 1.25Mgz G4 takes eons to scroll. And don’t even try to view images in Word.
One can say this is the fault of the MacBU in Microsoft - but why does Apple laud them as great Mac app developer?
And does anyone know why Preview installed with Panther is light years faster than Preview with Jaguar? why can’t all mac apps be that fast?
they can be that fast, just wait till iPhoto 4 and iMovie 4. I’ve demoed them, and WOW. This is how they should be.
As for the CPU topic again, sure UI speed is important,and you dont need all that speed for that, but i’m talking about rendering. When i’m done with my iMovie and i want to share it, I want it to render to Mpeg4 ASAP the faster the better. The same goes for background encoding in iDVD. I want it to finish ASAP, and no cpu speed can be too fast for that stuff.
Greg, you smokin crack, boy. The G5 is still slow in my opinion. Granted, most people only use their computers for email, web, word processing and solitaire - but people like me (and there are hopefully quite a number of us) don’t stop there. We need more innovation, not less.
The only time computers will be good enough to not bother with further development, is the day when you don’t have to think about using them, repairing them, and you never have to wait for them to accomplish anything you want them to do. We’re quite a while from that. Particularly with the stunted, quarter by quarter profit driven bread crumb dispersion of ‘improvements’.