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Archive for April, 2006

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Saturday, April 29th, 2006

On Wednesday morning, I learned about a new release of the world-famous peer-to-peer telephony application, Skype, and promptly downloaded a copy. The key new feature was native support for Intel-based Macs. Without thinking about it, I launched the application, saw it bounce in the Dock a time or two and then it stopped dead. I tried it on my Power Mac G5 and an iMac with Intel-inside. Same symptoms, and, within hours, it had been withdrawn.

You will probably never learn just what went wrong, but you wonder whether anyone, anywhere, could get that failed application to run and how it possibly passed quality control testing. Surely it would have been obvious from the get-go that something was wrong. Now it may be a simple matter to fix, and the new version will be out shortly, perhaps by the time you read this commentary. I also wonder whether the employees responsible for what may have been an innocent error will be appropriately chastised.

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Saturday, April 29th, 2006

One thing is certain and that is that Apple maintains tight-fisted control over information about the company. When it comes to new products, the entire marketing process from press release, to contacts with media and ads, is carefully orchestrated. And the results have usually been highly successful. Product announcements that would be routine at other companies garner big headlines in major online and print publications around the world.

In this environment, members of the press are treated equally, but some are treated more equally than others. This means that a precious few favored reporters, generally from such publications as The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, will get stories about new products and review samples ahead of the rest of the pack. It’s not so much a case of discrimination, but wanting to get the maximum impact as the marketing machine spins into action.

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Saturday, April 29th, 2006

Unlike the release of the original 15.4-inch MacBook Pro, the announcement of a 17-inch version Monday morning seemed almost an afterthought. The announcement came in a press release, and the appropriate updates at Apple’s online store. The $2,799 price is also consistent with the model it replaces, and if you don’t look at the specs closely, you can accept the situation and get on with your life. Or prepare to place your order, since they’re going to be shipping next week, and there are no long waits. At least not yet.

But you have to look at the smaller model, and you wonder. You don’t have to examine the specs all that closely to realize the new model’s pricing represents a much better value, at least for the time being. What do I mean? Well, take the 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo processor, which is standard on the 17-inch version. In order to add that option to the smaller MacBook Pro, you have to add $300, which makes the list price identical. And that’s before you add the larger hard drive to the package. No doubt that portends an upcoming price reduction or processor enhancement for the original model, but it does seem strange right now.

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Friday, April 28th, 2006

The closer Apple moves to having what many regard as industry-standard hardware, the easier it is for some to say that Macs are still a little too expensive compared to the competition. After all, if the internal components are essentially the same, where does Apple get off charging more for its products, even if the cases are, well, prettier?

Well, I would have thought this myth would have been dispelled long ago, and certainly it’s not for want of trying. But, on the surface at least, there is good reason why this perception simply will not go away, and I suspect some of you wonder about it whenever you walk into an electronics store and see those $399 PC boxes, apparently ready to roll and complete with display, keyboard, mouse. How can Apple possibly compete with that?

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