[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Spoken like a true salesman.

I just down buy all this "hallelujah Apple is doing the best they possibly could" as long as their market share is as small as it is.

Well, as for the "salesman" jibe: You ever met a salesman who told you flat-out to deal with the offerings, as they probably make the most sense to the company that's in it to make money, and not to you? That's not what most salespeople will tell you, y'know.

I do know enough to figure that making MONEY is FAR better than making market share.

It might be easy for them to increase their marketshare short-term if they were prepared to pander to everybody and their dog's requests and commit suicide in the process.

Look at the 90s and the super-diverse offerings had back then. One of Apple's STRENGTHS is the fact that their product lines are so simple.

Apple's looking at the next ten to fifteen years, and not only trying to gauge how the markets will develop, but trying to shape them to their own benefit.

They might offer corporate machines to rival Dell at some point in the future. But I'm pretty sure they neither want to, nor need to.

At the moment, Apple is rolling up the smartphone market much the way they rolled up the mp3 player market. They will, at some point, roll up the home user market, as well.

Once that happens, what do you reckon will happen when all those people who use and love their Macs at home have to use Windows at work? You're already seeing it happen in a fairly big way with the iPhone being shoehorned into businesses.

I'm seeing it happen with laptops, to a growing extent.

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Simon 

So you would have sacrificed a bit of battery volume to get the space for an extra FW port. Others wouldn't have wanted to give up any battery lifetime.

No matter what Apple chose some people would have been disappointed. Only time will tell if they made the right call.

i don't recall saying anything about sacrificing battery volume...
my belief is, if apple wanted FW on the macbook, it would be there.
this is a choice, to force consumers who need (or want) firewire to go with the mbp;
but it leaves out those of us who need firewire, but prefer a 'small & light' notebook.

jeez...i need to stop making this argument. i've done it 20 times since the new mb's were introduced! (guess it's important to me...)

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I do know enough to figure that making MONEY is FAR better than making market share.

There's no reason why they couldn't do both - make money and expand market share - by catering to the overwhelming majority of computer buyers who buy tower desktops. Not workstations, not AIOs, and not minis, regular towers. You don't offer any convincing reason not to do so except for an unjustified bias in favor of Apple's current lineup. And that's the last word I'll write on this topic in this thread.

[Spheric Harlot]

The shrinking market and absence of margins don't convince you?

[Maflynn]

a mid range tower (that's what we're talking about now right) makes no sense in apple's line up. While personally I could see myself buying one, I can also see myself buying an iMac. Given Apple's offering, a mid range headless tower will cannibalize apple's iMac sales and Mac Pro sales. Stealing from people who'd buy either one.

There'd be too much overlap between the three models, heck that's been on of the criticisms between the MB and MBP. The consumer marketed MB is extremely close to performance and feature wise to the MBP making it difficult for people to choose one over the other. Lack of FW and a less expensive display panel was apple's way of creating a difference and so far everyone has been unhappy with both of those decisions.

To be fair, I'd probably have gone the MB route if the display was better. Spending 1500 is always better then 2500 (for the 2.5Ghz)

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The shrinking market and absence of margins don't convince you?

Apparently, the market share for the kind of notebooks Apple makes is shrinking in favor of netbooks:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...le_market.html

OMG, Apple should immediately discontinue the MacBook and MBP ASAP! The market is shrinking!

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The shrinking market and absence of margins don't convince you?

As has been pointed out, that claim is just plain wrong. The regular tower market completely dwarfs the AIO market, yet Apple still pursues it. There's no reason why Apple couldn't have a comfortably high margin xMac as an alternative to the iMac for those who refuse to buy AIOs. Guess I broke my early promise.

[Remlyor]

This forum was initially about a laptop, but turned into a run on debate about something Apple will never make: aka the xMac. Then about why Apple is doing so poorly, their market share which against most companies is doing damn well. Yes, that's right, company to company. Comparing Apple to the entire PC market is silly, their 8.x percent of the market share is better then it's ever been, and 25 Billion in the bank is impressive no matter how you look at it. Apple has come a long ways, and unlike many computer companies these days, they're making money not loosing it. PC's turn over constantly, and are always trying to capture one part of the market, it's rather funny to watch them scramble to copy some product that Apple makes. Recently it's the iPhone, oddly enough all the rip offs are twice if not three times the price.

Ok, now that I got that out, will Apple bring back the 13 or 12 inch pro notebook, seriously doubt that. I get a few customer in once in a while that ask if we have this non existent small notebook touting pro features, it's usually these graphic pro or photography pro's asking, since they're so mobile. In most these articles here in MacNN it's the same, if they don't I'll buy a PC to fit that role, know what, go ahead. I hope you enjoy that cheaply made laptop, and that annoying OS their running. If you think you're going to throw OSX on it and use Final Cut Pro or Aperture you're in for a big surprise, and another surprise when you call Apple and complain that something isn't working right.

[bikeboy]

Remlyor - thanks for bringing us back. I still can't help but think that unifying the laptop line using the same unibody aluminum frames, and offering MB and MBP versions of each size (13", 15", 17"), would provide genuine business value for the company (i.e., cost, environmental, buyer appeal). So far the most damning argument I've heard against (I think) is heat. But with another die shrink to 32nm - with accompanying reduced heat dissipation - on the horizon, I can't see that being a problem. Time will tell, and I've already accepted that I may be forced to buy an ungainly 15" MBP (sigh), but I'll be dreaming about a 13" Calpella MBP until the bitter end :-)

[Simon]

The 'bitter end' is still quite far away. Calpella has been delayed to 4Q09. So you're looking at probably another year of waiting and hoping.

[bikeboy]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The 'bitter end' is still quite far away. Calpella has been delayed to 4Q09. So you're looking at probably another year of waiting and hoping.

Actually Intel has denied rumors that the mobile Nehalem will be delayed. I expect to pick up my 13" Calpella in August ;-)