[Metro]

I thought there would be interest in this article of a mother who does freelance publishing work, who bought a Mac and the writer trying to dissuade the reader from Macs. I wrote them.

Here is the link:
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0...07200,00.html?


Here is an Excerpt:

"At the low end of the spectrum, there is Apple's popular iMac computer. The iMac is inexpensive and fully loaded, a perfect machine for first-time users who don't mind the limited choice of software available for Macs.

But where's the middle? Nowhere. If you want enhanced power and flexibility, you won't find it in the Apple lineup for less than $2,000."

[scaught]

what else is new in the world of uninformed journalists. emailing them isnt going to get them to retract what they said. they love the shocking story. whatever his name over at businessworld was doing it for a while.

------------------
everyone tells me they're crazy,
crazy people arent so f***ing boring,
wake me when you're through being cool cause im snoring.
-jawbreaker

[Metro]

I agree with you, but this one just irked me this morning.And the paper does not appear to be that big, so I thought it could do no harm.

Here is the link if anyone is irked enough to email them. http://www.deseretnews.com/feedback/cust.htm

[yoyo52]

This seems to be a story the newspaper picked up from Kiplinger's Money Power or some such thing. Like a lot of small newspapers, the Deseret News just prints what their suppliers provide, with no research at all. The people to attack are the ones at Kiplinger's.

------------------
And that's true too.--Shakespeare, King Lear

[plaidpjs]

I don't know whether this was a picked up story, or original content, but I actually came across the story via another source and sent in the following e-mail:

Dear Sir and Ma'am,

I am addressing this e-mail to you for lack of a better alternative.

Recently, an article from your publication was brought to my attention, "There's No Middle Ground When It Comes to a Mac: Kiplinger's Money Power". I am unsure whether this original content by your staff or if this was borrowed from another publication, in either event it is extremely misleading and not very accurate.

To begin with, the writer of the story seems to want to put the selection of Apple products on a scale from low-end to high-end. This scale of his/hers while possibly a good idea, is implemented incorrectly. If you wanted to look at Apple's product line in scales, you first need to divide it accurately. Apple currently makes three categories of computers - home professional, and portable.

In the HOME category are the iMac computers and the G4 Cubes. These are all self contained units, they include a CPU, memory, video card, sound, CD (or better), firewire and USB ports, and an NIC. They also ship with a full size keyboard, an optical mouse, and have a built-in 15" monitor. On the low end of the scale is the 400MHz machine, on the high-end are the 600MHz macines, and right in the middle are the 500MHz machines. As you go up in speed you get increasing amounts of memory and hard drive space, as well.

At the very top end of this category are the G4 Cubes. They have not been as successful a product as the iMac, but are still being made and sold by Apple. These machines boast an 8" cube design and have G4 chips as well as AGP video cards installed. The Cube systems are meant for people who want more power, and the use of larger monitors, but don't want to over extend their budget.

In the PROFESSIONAL category, the area the writer should have focused on, are the Desktop G4 systems. Currently, the G4 Desktop machines come in five different configurations starting at the low-end with a G4/466 and ending on the high-end with the G4/733. Each of these machines starts with a base of 128MB of RAM, 1MB of L2 cache, onboard Gigabit NIC, and a CD-RW drive. As you move up the chain you get increasing hard drive space and better video.

All of these machines are meant for professional and power users and boast the connections, exapnsion capabilities, an performance needed for even the most demanding of desktop publishing tasks, among other things. The low end of the category starts at $1,700 and tops out on the high-end for $3,500 (please note, however, the high-end G4/733 also includes the SuperDrive, a DVD-R/CD-RW combo drive, instead of the standard CD-RW). You can also have all of these system made BTO direct from Apple.

The last category, PORTABLE, includes the iBook and PowerBook series laptop computers. Apple just recently launched a new slate of iBook computers that are small, lightweight, and very pwoerful in theior own rights. They boast active matrix displays, long life batteries, and full size keyboards, as well as a 10/100 NIC interface, firewire and USB ports, 128MB of RAM, and a 10GB harddrive. At the lowest level they include a CD-ROM drive and at the highest level a CD-RW drive, there is also a BTO version that includes a combo CD-R/DVD drive. These laptops run from $1,300 up to $1,600 and have gotten rave reviews from most critics.

The latest PowerBooks from Apple are the Titanium PowerBook G4s. These are revolutionary new laptop computers, designed specifically for the power-user market. Currently, they come in two flavors a 400MHz version and a 500Mhz version, they boast either a 10GB HDD or a 20GB HDD, 128MB of RAM or 256MB of RAM, a DVD drive, firwire and USB ports, 56K modems, and a 15.2" widescreen active matrix display.

In any case, the point of describing each of these areas and the products available, is to highlight the inaccuracies of the article cited above, wherein the author plainly states there is no middle ground at Apple. Quite frankly, as I have shown, there is quite a bit of "middle" ground in the Apple product line. Also, there are a number of Apple computers that have price tags under $2,000.

No one questions the fact that Apple has high margins on their hardware products, but they are much more price competitive than the writer made them out to be. Further, Apple is not just a computer manufacturer for the "creative market," especially since the release of the new OS X operating system, which has opened up a number of new software avenues for Apple computing. Even earlier, however, Apple computers were great for any number of other activities, including playing games, browsing the Internet, accounting, general office work, and education.


When possible, I would suggest you or your writer stop over at the Apple website, or visit one of the new retail stores. I think you'll be impressed with just how complete a solution Apple computers can be.

------------------
G4/533 DP, 768 MB RAM, 40GB HDD, 32MB GeForce2 MX, 30GB VST Firewire Drive, and an Apple Cinema Display.

[jeffhot]

I think we should keep track of all the negative and untrue articles written about Macs, including forecasts a la "Apple retail will die, too!" And write all the authors bosses, demanding that they print a retraction or be fired!

I can't wait to see what the critics say about the success of the Apple stores. "Oh those are just old customers buying more Macs again!" yeah, right.