[funkboy]

From a MacCentral article where Apple's CFO, Fred Anderson, talks about lackluster sales in the Power Mac:

"We acknowledge that one of our biggest challenges is to get Power Mac sales back up to 200,000 units per quarter at least," Anderson said. "The management is very focused on the situation and have a number of plans going forward to enhance performance in the Power Mac area. We truly believe there's some pent-up demand among creative professionals. We think that the typical 24-36 month upgrade cycle has been elongated by the difficult economy."

Is anyone else feeling the economy has affected their upgrade cycles? I have my own theory:

* Apple's raw speed count, and overall system architecture, is not where many people who make long-term investments in computer hardware want it to be right now. Since there's DDR RAM on the motherboard, but not a really fast motherboard to support that RAM, I imagine many feel that waiting will pay off in much better performance in not too long.
* Quark doesn't run in OS X. It runs more than fine in OS 9. These people will not upgrade to either OS X or a new G4 until Quark becomes OS X native and is nice 'n stable on that platform.
* I'm still unconvinced of OS X's speed. There have *got* to be some ways Apple can up the performance of the operating system in the most fundamental areas such as window resizing, scrolling, etc. Though I haven't tested it out scientifically, the 400MHz G4 tower I'm typing this on feels very similar in speed and pep to my 800MHz G4 iMac, and therefore I don't think that even a dual 1.25GHz tower will provide that much more speed, as there seems to be something that's fundamentally holding back the OS aside from processor speed. I don't want to open up the hold snappiness™ can of worms, but the fact that resizing a window still feels just awkward is a really fundamental problem of any operating system.
* Noise. After first using my friend's classic iMac (the first one that was fanless), I realized the beauty of having a quiet computer, and swore that I'd only buy computers that were somewhat quiet. My beige G3 is noisy, but I lived with it. After seeing the Cube, though, I knew I wanted something like that. At the time I didn't have the funds. Since then, though, I needed a new computer. I seriously contemplated a Power Mac, but a variety of reasons kept me from it. One of the biggest was noise - I had heard horror stories about the noise, and even those I knew who owned one said the computer was simply noisy, no other way to put it.
So, because of noise (and space, an entirely different topic), I got an iMac G4. It still had a G4, and a nice flat-panel display (another thing I want to have, though I don't feel the iMac's flat panel is good enough for color-sensitive work) , and was reasonably priced for it all. If there was a Cube, or some quiet G4 that was more powerful, I would have possibly gotten that.

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Now that I'm completely off my own topic... what do you think is the cause of Apple's low Power Mac sales?

[EnVoy]

It's the economy fore most. After that, I think that most people in the professional arena will wait until OSX is a few versions down the road, and is compatable with most image setters, RIPS, etc... Also, if a companies machines work fine as they are, they are not apt to ditch it all and buy new systems when they don't need to.

[art_director]

IMO the primary reason is the economy.

Another reason, at least with the art directors and designers I know, is we've decided laptops are preferrable to a desktop machine. Sure, you lose some speed and the screen isn't the best representation for color, but hey, you can get out of your office / studio. You can also hook a monitor up to it when your in your space. Mobility, baby, that's the key in today's world.

[godzookie2k]

Originally posted by art_director:
IMO the primary reason is the economy.

Another reason, at least with the art directors and designers I know, is we've decided laptops are preferrable to a desktop machine. Sure, you lose some speed and the screen isn't the best representation for color, but hey, you can get out of your office / studio. You can also hook a monitor up to it when your in your space. Mobility, baby, that's the key in today's world.

I don't know about the laptop as a primary machine theory, as I'm a big tower/workstation none of that working in the coffee shop kinda guy. But, the economy is a big issue that plays into Apple's downright horrid price/performance ratio. Hell, 2+ years later I'm STILL no where close to paying off my G4 from a few years back, and there is no way in hell I could justify another tower for some time. And even if I could, I'm not about to blow three grand on a box that is BARELY twice the processing power of the one I bought two years ago, I'f I'm plunking down three grand I'd damn well better get a better speed boost than that.I think that the bad economy is giving people more justification in waiting for apples next processor/major speed bump decision.

[gadster]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
BARELY twice the processing power of the one I bought two years ago,

I'm using a G4 450 SP 750Mb at work for graphic design and the only time I get to go out for a smoke is doing big Press Optimised pdfs (15 mins for a 24pg tabloid newspaper).

I get more or less real time brushes in Photoshop on a 300dpi A3 image.

At home I have a lowly 733 SP G4 1.5 gig and, once inside an app, it smokes. It's easy to get hung up on benchmarks and stats, but what it really comes down to is how often you can justify going out for a ciggy, because you have to wait for a task to finish.

I hope they don't get too quick, too soon.

[art_director]

Originally posted by godzookie2k:
I don't know about the laptop as a primary machine theory...

I know two types of art directors and designers: freelaners and those on staff. The full time guys / gals are buying laptops for their home machines because:

a. Mobility around the house with an Airport and taking it to work out of the home (ie. coffee shops)

b. Their agency / design firms give them desktop machines so that need is filled at work

c. Space savings on the desk


Freelancers like them for the same reasons plus we can bring our own machines onsite. It prefferable to being stuck on a beige g3 with 256 MB RAM and old crappy monitor.

It's really funny because *everyone* is buying them now.

[funkboy]

Originally posted by art_director:
Freelancers like them for the same reasons plus we can bring our own machines onsite. It prefferable to being stuck on a beige g3 with 256 MB RAM and old crappy monitor.

Do you think the Powerbook's screen is good enough for color-sensitive work, or are you just saying as far as resolution and operating system goes?

I agree, laptops are horribly useful.

[art_director]

Originally posted by funkboy:
Do you think the Powerbook's screen is good enough for color-sensitive work, or are you just saying as far as resolution and operating system goes?

I agree, laptops are horribly useful.

No, color work shouldn't be done on the PowerBook screen. It's decent-ish but not accurate and when you change your viewing position the color changes.

When I do color work I plug in a monitor or use my desktop.