When I suggested recently that we had returned to the silly season, perhaps a little earlier than I might have expected, I didn’t know how right I was. A recent article, from a site that I won’t name, is now suggesting that the iPad is the first nail in the Mac’s coffin, that it won’t be long before only the Mac Pro remains in the lineup. We’ll all be using iPads real soon now, at least according to what’s being implied in that article.

Now there is some reason to believe that a portion of traditional Mac users might decide the iPad is all they need. That, of course, holds true for tens of millions of current Windows users, particularly those who have embraced those cheap netbooks.

The real issue, however, is what purpose the iPad serves in the real world. Yes, Apple will offer a single productivity suite, an iPad version of the various iWork apps, sold separately for $9.99 each. However, that is but one example, and unless or until there are loads of such products available, the iPad is destined to be largely a consumption device.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• A Few Words About the iPad’s Biggest Competitor
• Another Apple Secret: Keep the Apps Cheap!
• An iPhone 4.0 Wish List
• The iTunes Profit Myth
• The Myths About Apple Keep on Coming

Now we all know that Snow Leopard appeared last August, but for some of you it still has serious problems, so you’re sticking with Leopard. Some of you are even Tiger holdouts, because Leopard didn’t light your fire.

The other day, I saw a perfectly serious article claiming adoption of 10.6 was not so good and then trying to explain why. But when the article’s statistics demonstrated a roughly 45% adoption rate, despite the fact that millions of Mac users can’t install Snow Leopard, the basic premise was invalidated.

Aside from those of you who have PowerPC-based Macs, and thus can never install Snow Leopard, it is quite true that 10.6 is perceived as fatally flawed in some respects. Some complain of more system crashes, others fret that their applications aren’t compatible yet.

Unfortunately, such issues apply to all personal computer operating system upgrades, from Apple and Microsoft. Early adopters suffer the pain and agony of bugs that weren’t eradicated before shipping. Some of the apps and peripheral drivers you require for your work are suddenly rendered inoperable. So you’re stuck, unless, of course, you stick with what you have.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Snow Leopard Report: How Much Abuse Should You Accept?
• So Maybe You Don’t Need Snow Leopard!
• About that Silly 10.6.2 Speculation
• Apple and the Lost Data Syndrome
• The Operating System Wars: Decisions, Decisions

It’s nothing new. When the iPod first came out, bloggers and so-called tech pundits were busy complaining about the features it didn’t have, such as a built-in radio, or perhaps a working kitchen sink. None of that hurt actual sales of the product, of course, since it became a runaway best-seller and sales only began to flatten and dip over the past year after the market matured and smartphones began to take over.

Apple gave the naysayers six months to complain about the iPhone’s notable lapses. That was the period between the product launch and original shipping date. Even though it sold more than anyone expected, the initial lack of a proper method to build apps for the gadget, aside from Web-based ones of course, had to be the killer shortcoming. The lack of cut, copy and paste and multitasking played second fiddle.

A year later, the App Store was unveiled.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Myths About Apple Keep on Coming
• More Uncritical Media Assumptions
• Apple’s Iron Fist
• Is it Too Late for Apple to Amaze Us?
• Newsletter Issue #532: The Waiting for Apple to Fail Report

Some people want you to believe that Apple is a dictatorship, with Steve Jobs micromanaging everything and relying on his temperamental personality to make critical corporate decisions. Good or bad, it means that, were Jobs to bow out, the company would be on the skids in an extremely short time.

There may be something in this description of Jobs’ mercurial personality. Certainly he can be blunt and unpredictable, but it’s also fair to say that Apple is a fairly big company, with over 30,000 people depending on them for their paychecks. Does a one-man-band really work in that environment?

What the critics fail to realize is that Apple has lots of brilliant people, starting with Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook. As you may have seen when Steve Jobs took six months off, during which time he got a liver transplant, Apple did surprisingly well despite the worst economic slowdown in decades. It seemed the company hardly missed a beat, and it strains credibility that Jobs would, while still on the mend from major surgery, somehow keep his hands on every spoke in the wheel.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Apple Continues to Make Money Hand Over Fist
• The iTunes Profit Myth
• The Myths About Apple Keep on Coming
• The iSlate Report: So Where Does Apple’s Creativity End?
• Apple and Microsoft: It’s All About the Money