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As Apple Gains PC Market Share, Jobs Talks of a Decade of Upgrades

nytimes.com — Two research firms that track the computer market said last week that Apple would move into third place in the United States behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell on Monday, when it reports product shipments in the fiscal fourth quarter as part of its earnings announcement.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 22, 2007

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  • Gabberwok, on 10/24/2007, -2/+101So can Steve afford to buy another shirt now?
  • bremstrong, on 10/24/2007, -17/+94One would think that Microsoft, with all their money and programmers, could put together an OS that solved the problems people want solved, was easy to use and set up, was really fast, had a powerful, easy to use word processor, etc.

    Apple is beating them.

    This must be very frustrating for a lot of people at Microsoft.
  • coloneltcb, on 10/24/2007, -3/+64Isn't it the conensus (not just amongst us fanboys) that TIGER has a range of features that in some cases match those in Windows Vista and in others surpass them?
  • Angostura, on 10/24/2007, -4/+60I think a large part of the difference is the way that the companies handled backwards compatibility. In the big move from OS 9 to OS X Jobs made the decision to make a clean brake and run old programs in an emulation layer. It wasn't without problems - some apps broke, performance was degraded. But long term, the policy paid dividends - all the old crufty stuff was isolated to the emulation and the new architecture could be built clean and shiny. Microsoft could have taken a similar approach with NT or XP or Vista, but didn't.

    Partly, I suspect they didn't think they had the luxury; the howls of pain from large enterprises had the old apps gone into emulation would have been too loud. I think they are still going to have to do it one day. They literally tie themselves and their code-base in knots trying to maintain native support for apps from the early 90s. It's no mean feat that they manage it, but it must sap their will to live some times.


  • schoate09, on 10/23/2007, -6/+49Leopard surpass Vista? I didn't know Vista even came close to Tiger in the first place...
  • Angostura, on 10/23/2007, -5/+46I'm not entirely surprised. It has been noticeable how many Mac laptops have been popping up amongst co-workers over the last two years - particularly among the geeks. Moreover a friend who was a tremendous Apple sceptic ended up getting a MacBook Pro the other month simply to run ProTools on, since it was having problems with Vista. He was sufficiently impressed with the machine that he got his parents an iMac a few weeks later.

    I was a bit 'meh' about Leopard, but having looked at the list of new features and seen the video guide, I'm pretty sure I'll get it. I just hope that they've managed to keep performance front-and-centre. One of the things that drove my to buy previous upgrades was that from 10.0 -> 10.3 each upgrade actually made your machine faster. 10.4 was the first one that actually demanded more of the system. I see that 10.5 has a G4 800 something as a minimum requirement so, I hope this one isn't going to be a resource hog.
  • hongkongjapie, on 10/23/2007, -2/+41Regardless which is the better O.S., Vista or Leopard, I think it's quite amazing that Apple manage to build it with probably only a fraction of the budget that MS had to make Vista and still have something regarded as competitive (or according to some, superior).
    Let's hope Apple can keep up! I.M.H.O. the software industry would greatly benefit if the market O.S. market becomes competitive again.

  • cvh™, on 10/24/2007, -1/+29nope, but now he can wash it 5 times a day...
  • Tenoq, on 10/22/2007, -3/+28Wrong. Some geeks like using computers, not fixing them. I fix the ***** all day, and I like my box at home to just work.
  • ibookfast, on 10/28/2007, -5/+29you mean zero viruses.
  • antitab, on 10/23/2007, -1/+23Yeah man, ***** that whole Darwin underpinning. No geek would use a real UNIX that incidentally can run any POSIX app and framework ever. What an absurd concept.
  • aneconcept, on 10/23/2007, -18/+40"On Friday, Apple will start selling the new Leopard version of its OS X operating system, which has a range of features that in some cases match those in Windows Vista and in others surpass them."

    Ha!
  • bremstrong, on 10/22/2007, -6/+24LemmingJesus: Legacy market share to lose, Microsoft's got it.

    Regarding Vista vs. Leopard, Vista users are suing to downgrade to XP. I don't doubt the consensus will be that Leopard is better than Vista, despite Microsoft being "one of the most successful and richest companies".

    Marketshare and money don't guarantee quality.
  • tbenathan, on 10/23/2007, -5/+22As a Mac user, I'm excited by Apple's market share expansion. There are two main consequences of this news. First, developers currently sitting on the fence will make more and better Mac applications. Second, despite a name change, Apple will keep in mind that their main business is still the computing business, and future iterations of Mac OS X will benefit.
  • inactive, on 10/23/2007, -3/+18I've used leopard for 4 months and i promise you the upgrade is worth it - i'd honestly do it just for the file preview (cover flow), downloads folder (stack) and time machine alone as they are the most noticeable changes - it is equally as fast as tiger. Do note that if you have some questionable programs on your mac (ie. something you haven't bought) those probably won't work on leopard.
  • gropo, on 10/22/2007, -1/+16Yeah... All those guys with thick glasses at NASA and the JPL that I see on PBS in meetings with MacBooks in front of them. Not 'true' geeks.
    'True' geeks fire up Ubuntu to troll on Digg.
  • MacParrot, on 10/23/2007, -1/+16Right! How DARE Apple improve existing functionality and put in features that both users and developers can use to make their experience on the computer better. They've got some nerve!
  • inactive, on 10/24/2007, -0/+15It felt like seven years.
  • MtheoryX, on 10/24/2007, -0/+14I wish I knew how he washed his darks. I've tried everything! No matter what I do, my darks are only good for about 10 washes.
  • MtheoryX, on 10/22/2007, -0/+14If you're a 'true' geek, why would you want to waste your time fiddling with cards and drivers?
    Me, I just like to get to work solving problems and writing code.
    I'd really rather not have to worry about upgrading equipment.
    And what upgrades does a 'true' geek need to make all the time? With a Mac, I have UNIX, Developer Tools, plenty of RAM and HD space. It works perfectly for me.
    And if I need a new computer, or an "upgrade" as you call it, I buy one. And then start working with it out of the box.
    I'll leave the tinkering and "upgrading" to the kids in "computer repair" classes down at the local community college.
    But, I guess I must not be a 'true' geek since I'd rather spend my time on what is most valuable and solves the most complex issues.
  • DaffyDuck, on 10/22/2007, -1/+15Sorry ZenMojo but you don't know what you are talking about.
  • Angostura, on 10/22/2007, -0/+14Clearly intentional - when you run applications under emulation, they either break, or brake - one or the other.

    /OK, good catch. Never post before your first coffee.
  • Kitsune818, on 10/22/2007, -1/+15I develop software for a living, and among my coworkers Apple machines are showing up like they are reproducing asexually. The iPod effect started it, the failures of Vista have continued it. I have to admit, though, in the right circles Apple made and related machines have always been popular. NeXt boxen were fairly popular years back because they were developer friendly and research-egghead approved. Many people consider OS X just the lastest NeXtStep.
  • Invalice, on 10/22/2007, -8/+21i just got a mac too because my school required a laptop and they had some sort of deal with Apple. I like it so far because
    Loads faster
    Less Viruses
    There is a ease of use to it, compared to windows.
    - But i installed windows on Bootcamp for them games =)

  • deadbaby, on 10/22/2007, -0/+12It's not just Vista -- it's all the crapware that comes on new PC these days. The typical new computer is a dumpster. People don't want to spend $1k+ and feel like they're getting stuck with a computer full of crapware.
  • theskyman, on 10/24/2007, -2/+14I installed Vista on a 2.8GHz system with a Gig of RAM and it ran like *****. I was shocked by how piss poor the performance was a switched back to XP. As someone who supports multi platforms (XP, OS X & Linux) I can tell you that Vista is a complete joke and pure bloat ware. Fortunately for Apple and Linux, and unfortunately for MS Vista is so far behind other OS's that MS may for the first time never be able to catch up.
  • naonao, on 10/24/2007, -1/+12$1 actually.
  • Charlotte_Web, on 10/22/2007, -0/+11It's called being a billionaire. You buy clothes in large quantities, and your housekeeping staff throws out anything that has even a hint of a permanent stain, fading color, or a fraying edge.

    I haven't tried it yet, myself, but I highly recommend it.
  • ZooKoo, on 10/22/2007, -0/+11OSX is the latest version of NeXStep, which was created at Steve Jobs previous company, NeXT. It was based on Mach which is/was a research oriented OS (at the time).
    The BSD layer is simply that, a user-land layer for compatibility with all the nice UNIXy goodies.
    In other words, it never was a BSD distro, thats a myth.
  • superkendall, on 10/23/2007, -1/+11Structurally though OS X is built to handle viruses better, with a better security model and people actually used to using non-admin users. Any security improvement Microsoft has put in is either already in place in OS X or being added with Leopard, and as I said Leopard goes a bit farther in which security features people actually use.

    Furthermore OS X has a significant advantage in terms of people actually applying system updates - Apple updates come more frequently, and are smaller so people apply them. This frequency of update also means that viruses have a maximum life of about two weeks before every system is patched against them, which in turn makes it really unappealing to spend a lot of effort crafting a virus for a Mac. With a PC you know that a virus installed could easily go for a month or even longer.
  • BlueStarr, on 10/22/2007, -3/+13That's not the point you moron. Money does little to change the fact that Vista is a pile of *****. Well its not all *****, I'm sure that there is some corn in there too.
  • MtheoryX, on 10/24/2007, -2/+11This is really not so different from other companies.
    Take two examples: Palm and Nintendo.
    Palm sells hardware. The developed their Palm OS to run on their harware. It helps to sell the hardware. Would they want you to take their Palm OS and run it on a sidekick or a blackberry? No, because they sell hardware.
    Nintendo DS. The goal is to sell hardware. The software is designed to run on their hardware alone. Should you force Nintendo to let you run the Nintendo software on a Sony PSP? No. Should you force Nintendo to let you run the PSP software on their DS device? No.
    So, looking at just these two examples of hardware companies, I would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that Apple has been very open and forgiving compared to many others.
    Apple != Microsoft. They are compared quite often, but they are anything but similar. Microsoft sells its OS. So, yes, they want you to pay them for the OS, and, in return, you can run it on whatever you want.
    Apple wants to sell you the hardware. As a bonus, you get a great OS, but the goal is selling the hardware. However, they are quite open with technologies, software, and virtualization methods that you can use on their hardware.
    Very different companies and strategies, indeed.
  • Angostura, on 10/25/2007, -1/+10Why don't they sell their OS separately? Let me see.... because they are a hardware company. The software is written to run specifically on their hardware and they would enter a world of Microsoftian pain if they were to try and generalise it to other hardware. Their software is great. It's designed to sell their hardware, as you say.

    Is their hardware ridiculously overpriced? Nope. Is it cheap? Nope. It's decent value - especially when you consider the bundled software. Hope that helps.
  • yabos, on 10/22/2007, -0/+9I guess you're not a "true" geek if you haven't spent 4 hrs trying to get your wireless card working under Linux.
  • SSUK, on 10/23/2007, -4/+13Derka Derka Mohammed Jobbs.
  • aristotle0dude, on 10/22/2007, -0/+9Ok, geeks with real jobs in tech and science buy macs as opposed to the unemployed basement dwelling variety which go dumpster diving for parts.
  • roweiage, on 10/22/2007, -2/+11Well, to be fair, higher marketshare has a beneficial effect for all Mac users. It drives the creation of more software and hardware specifically for the mac platform.

    Anyone who uses computers should be happy to hear for marketshare gains for any of the platforms they use.

    For the record, I use Macs on the desktop and Linux (Ubuntu, switching slowly to CentOS for it's stability) on the server.
  • ZenMojo, on 10/22/2007, -2/+11True, but they do equal laziness, especially when you're the #1 monopoly in the computer market and your closest competitor is a blip on the screen.
  • Angostura, on 10/22/2007, -1/+10They are a hardware company, so naturally they 'force' you to buy their hardware. What *actually* pisses you off is not that they don't choose to sell their software separately from their hardware. That's a very different situation to the monopoly argument versus Microsoft. Apple does nothing to stop you running other OSs on their hardware, in fact they positively encourage it.
  • MacParrot, on 10/22/2007, -0/+8If it leads to more developers taking a second (or in some cases a first) look at the Mac, yeah it's something to be excited about. You said earlier about Apple only working with a small subset of computer components. Who's fault is that really? Apple's or the makers of said devices that won't make Mac (or in most cases Linux as well) drivers?
  • kelly, on 10/22/2007, -1/+9yet there are still no viruses for the OS
  • aristotle0dude, on 10/27/2007, -2/+10That would be 97 cents Canadian.
  • unbreakable, on 10/22/2007, -0/+8Apple's "main business" is OSX. Its on everything they sell.
    As long as they continue to develop it, I am happy.
  • cbartlett, on 10/23/2007, -4/+12"Everyone I know that has a Mac these days runs Windows 90% of the time"? You must know very different people from I. Because I would say the converse.
  • DaffyDuck, on 10/22/2007, -1/+8In case anyone comes back to this let me elaborate. The spinning wheel in 98% of all cases happens as a result of the active application accessing the swap space (or paging file or whatever you want to call it). So, increasing the amount of RAM in your system reduces the amount of time you will see the wheel. It rarely means the application has frozen. It certainly doesn't mean it has crashed because in that case the window would just dissapear and you would have to restart it. Applications do crash in OS X but they so seldomly take down the system that it's not worth mentioning.

    So, while individual programs do crash on occasion (in my experience usually the result of memory leaks), the system very rarely does.

    You say macs crash all the time and then you start talking about the beachball. It's like you don't understand the difference between system errors and program errors. I thought it was us Mac users that were computer no-nothings.
  • Angostura, on 10/22/2007, -1/+8Sorry, I have no clue what you are attempting to say here: "I buy anything by any PC hardware developer and it works on every other PC, period, with or without USB cables. I buy anything from Apple without a USB, and I can only stick it in an Apple." what is that supposed to mean?
  • lrdntwnd, on 10/22/2007, -0/+7It will never be the end for OS X. At least not as long as Steve Jobs is running Apple. He has spent the entirety of his career in the computer industry trying to create this product. His ego is far too large to allow OS X to stop development. Not to mention the fact that there are innumerable tasks that OS X can do that Windows can't even dream of. Most of that is due to the fact that Apple builds the hardware that their system runs on and Microsoft doesn't, but there are things that Windows just can't do because Microsoft doesn't want it to. Of course, Apple is not perfect and there are improvements to many system functions that should have happened a long time ago and still haven't happened in Leopard, but nonetheless, OS X is quite probably the best OS being produced today. And I do know a few new Mac users who use Windows most of the time, but I also know a lot more who love the Mac OS so much more than Windows. It takes time to get used to a new environment and a lot of people just don't want to take the time. They feel comfortable with Windows and they want to continue with it. But, they do find that there are things that you just simply can't do in Windows that the Mac does very well.
  • MtheoryX, on 10/22/2007, -1/+8That's clearly not what Angostura was saying.
    You: OS X on non-apple hardware.
    Angostura: Other OS's on apple hardware
    See the difference?
    Reading comprehension is fun!
  • inkswamp, on 10/22/2007, -1/+8Wrong. An iPod needs a computer to be useful, not the other way around. Apple started chatting up the whole digital hub concept before the iPod arrived. The iPod is just one part of that idea. The computer is still the heart of it. That's still their core business.
  • mjparme, on 10/22/2007, -2/+9Well since Leopard is Unix certified and Tiger wasn't I would imagine there are A LOT of "under the cover" changes to the core OS. The changes listed in the list of 300 are put together by marketing to sell Leopard. The average user doesn't care and wouldn't understand the changes to the core OS so why would marketing list them? To say Leopard is just an update of bundled software applications is short-sighted.
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