[driven]

Wow .... yes, I'll give him some hits due to the passion of his hatred for all things Apple ... this guy is having a serious case of Road Rage ... computer style ... Let's send this guy the name of some good doctors to cure his ills .....

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/...&bounce2=y

[Drakino]

Jobs said it perfectly on CNBC. "You can't look at the stock day by day. You have to look at it over time." After hours today, it wiped out the loss from yesterday and rose 10%. For any investor buying stock to later sell at a higher price, Apple has been a great stock to get the past 2 years. For a tech company, the stock is doing some things most other tech companies can only dream about.

The total cost of the Mac Mini won't be that big of a deal. If people want the nice LCD, the keyboard and mouse, and a bit more speed, they wull indeed get the iMac. December sales proved the new iMac is doing very well. But for many people I know, they are just fine with getting the Mac mini and using an existing monitor. I have one friend looking at one to plop down in the living room as a DVD player and DVArchive machine for his ReplayTV, plus web surfing on his HDTV. He owns an eMac already, and tends to grab an iBook every two or so years. I know other people who have been pondering a Mac, but didn't want one with a screen since they intedned to use their dual input monitors. Now I know more friends who have bought a mac in 2005 compared to the 3 mac buys in 2004. And this is before the Powerbook refresh two are waiting on, and my mac refresh this year.

And regarding the iPod, so far no competitor has caused Apple to lose market share. The iPod mini tore into flash sales, and now the iPod shuffle will likely clean the rest up. The non iPod hard drive market shrank 1%, but aparently that guy ignored all those numbers. And already the iPod has been called the new Walkman. In fact is it selling quicker then the Walkman did. But from here, the iPod line still has a ways to go to hit market saturation.

The one thing that would help wrap up the music market would be some sort of device that helps non computer users be able to get an iPod. Rio tried this and a few others as well by releasing $1500 monstrosities that ripped CDs to an internal hard drive then could feed mobile units and home based streaming clients. The price point and lack of marketing killed every one of them. Apple just released a $500 system very capable of doing this. Sell one with special software to make iTunes easier to use via a TV. Include the TV adaptor and some low end control device, build in an iPod dock, and now you can convert everyone.

Media PC wise, I still don't see this taking off. Gateway tried long ago with the Destination (that still did things no MS Media Center PC does), and now Media Center PCs are in a 3rd software release and still no market adoption. Just because Microsoft keeps talking about it doesn't mean people are adopting it. Notice how quickly Tablet PCs died? Anyhow, for a media PC to do well, it needs to NOT include an IR remote, RF is better. Make it integrate into a home system better. Thus it needs to be quiet. It also should have better component integration. The later model Destinations had massive amounts of video and sudio inputs so it could act like a receiver.

Anyhow, I'll end this little rant. In any case, yes, they guy is an idiot and needs help. He looks right past the numbers in certain areas that prove his argument wrong.

[Eriamjh]

Wow. People really go out of their way to slam Apple.

I hope someone is logging all these early negative reviews so that we can keep score in 3 to 6 months of who was right and who was wrong.

They were wrong about the iMac (no floppy?). They were wrong about the iPod (too expensive). They were wrong about the iPod mini (too expensive, too small). And now they are looking like they will be wrong about the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle.

Apple doesn't always get it right (Cube, Newton, eMate), but why is the PC media so angry when Apple does?

[driven]

It's really bizare.