5 ms·

I think given enough time and experience where people can discover rock bottom dollars isn’t working, they will gravitate towards higher perceived value per dol

I think given enough time and experience where people can discover rock bottom dollars isn’t working, they will gravitate towards higher perceived value per dollar. Apple won only after windows gave average home users a horrific bsod/virus/reboot hell of an existence for about 20 years.

ronsor 2y ago
It's also good to remember that Macs weren't exactly that stable until Mac OS X.
- detourdog 2y ago
  They were stable enough and the plug and play actually worked.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  And yet people kept buying windows and whining about it many versions of OS X later.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  Even so, the more Windows machines I had back in the day, the less real work I got done. Something was always not working, with no obvious pattern. Most problems took work to fix. I learned not to install and uninstall things. Even if I needed to. The more Mac’s I had, the more likely I ran into a problem as well. But it was usually just some glitch.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-tech family & friends windows machines for various critical ailments with great frequency until they all switched to Macs.
    - Clubber 2y ago
      >Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-tech family & friends windows machines for various critical ailments with great frequency until they all switched to Macs. I second this. My mom switched to a iMac G4 and never needed me again, except that time she plugged the power strip into itself. It got to the point where I didn't want to tell people I worked with computers.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  Nor was Windows in the 95/98/Me era, it was a Hobson's choice back then.
detourdog 2y ago
During that 20 years experts dismissed Apple as dying and too risky windows was the smart investment just like VHS.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Mostly windows machines of comparable spec could be had for 10% less, but most importantly there were many OEMs willing to sell objectively bad underspecced machines that were 50-75% cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Remember the era when people had overheating laptops etc.
  - detourdog 2y ago
    Price comparing Macs and PCs has rarely been accurate. The experts I remember would hammer the price difference and say Apple was dying so the investment isn’t worth it.
  - devmor 2y ago
    This is happening again now, with a new addition (well, resurgent) of insidious price cutting strategy: adware. Ed Zitron goes into it in a recent article rant here[1] (skip to the "direct example" section if you're not interested in the rest of the read) where he reviews the best selling laptop on Amazon, which is ridiculously cheap... at a devil's bargain. 1. https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      At this point it’s like the old story about boots - too poor to afford cheap ones. Most people would be better served with a $600 Mac mini that will literally still be working & better in 5 years than in buying a $300 Amazon deal with 4GB ram which will run awful and die right outside warranty period. Maybe in a couple years apple will have prior year minis a little cheaper / refurbs available at $450-500ish too.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      $240 for that, huh. I just bought a $280 Acer laptop, still limited storage but better class, twice the ram, and with a CPU that actually has performance cores so it runs 2.5x-5x faster. It came with chromeOS, which is a limiting factor, but in this particular comparison it sounds like it's more of an upside than a downside.
leptons 2y ago
How did Apple "win"? They have always been a fraction of the market share of desktop/laptop computers, and they are only popular on mobile in the US, worldwide Android is dominant with 72% of the market. If you mean money===success, then sure, they have money, but do you compare their money to all the companies making PCs and all the companies making Android phones in the world combined? Apple fans have 1 single company to choose from, but PC/Android fans have hundreds of options - I can get a PC or Android in hundreds of form factors, whatever I need but Apple only sells what Apple makes. Sounds to me like PC/Android fans are the real "winners". >Apple won only after windows gave average home users a horrific bsod/virus/reboot hell of an existence for about 20 years. This hasn't been a thing for a very long time. I hear about as much about the spinning beach ball of death as I do BSOD. Apple is by no means perfect, or did you forget "you're holding it wrong".
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Everyone is a winner of their own story
- CamJN 2y ago
  AAPL 3.785T > MSFT 3.134T. In the only measure that matters for American companies, Apple won.
  - brightlancer 2y ago
    That's a silly comparison: by that metric, Apple "won" against Saudi Aramco and Berkshire Hathaway, and Microsoft also "won" against them. Except that they aren't in the same business. On the desktop, Microsoft is still kicking Apple's ass. Even moreso for servers. The only place Apple "won" is on mobile, where Microsoft lost to _everybody_.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      I can't find the exact stat right now with some light google, but I recall there was a stat that while Apple doesn't have majority of user base, they essentially have an outsized share of the profit due to the average sales price & associated profit margins. In Windows space, MSFT gets their license money, and then its a commodity race to the bottom by the hardware makers who need to pay AMD/Intel for chips, MSFT for a license, and compete with 100 no-names OEMs for every penny.
dehrmann 2y ago
> Apple won only after windows... Apple won after Sony dropped the ball on HDD Walkmans and Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Blackberry failed to reject carrier bloatware. Macs are a side hustle for Apple, and MS is still the dominant player for desktop computing.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Apple has never "won" in the sense that Windows has always had by far more installed desktops. Android also by far runs more phones than iOS. Apple "won" the wealthy Western market, which is all that has ever mattered to them.

ronsor 2y ago

It's also good to remember that Macs weren't exactly that stable until Mac OS X.

detourdog 2y ago
They were stable enough and the plug and play actually worked.
steveBK123 2y ago
And yet people kept buying windows and whining about it many versions of OS X later.
Nevermark 2y ago
Even so, the more Windows machines I had back in the day, the less real work I got done. Something was always not working, with no obvious pattern. Most problems took work to fix. I learned not to install and uninstall things. Even if I needed to. The more Mac’s I had, the more likely I ran into a problem as well. But it was usually just some glitch.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-tech family & friends windows machines for various critical ailments with great frequency until they all switched to Macs.
  - Clubber 2y ago
    >Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-tech family & friends windows machines for various critical ailments with great frequency until they all switched to Macs. I second this. My mom switched to a iMac G4 and never needed me again, except that time she plugged the power strip into itself. It got to the point where I didn't want to tell people I worked with computers.
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
Nor was Windows in the 95/98/Me era, it was a Hobson's choice back then.

detourdog 2y ago

During that 20 years experts dismissed Apple as dying and too risky windows was the smart investment just like VHS.

steveBK123 2y ago
Mostly windows machines of comparable spec could be had for 10% less, but most importantly there were many OEMs willing to sell objectively bad underspecced machines that were 50-75% cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Remember the era when people had overheating laptops etc.
- detourdog 2y ago
  Price comparing Macs and PCs has rarely been accurate. The experts I remember would hammer the price difference and say Apple was dying so the investment isn’t worth it.
- devmor 2y ago
  This is happening again now, with a new addition (well, resurgent) of insidious price cutting strategy: adware. Ed Zitron goes into it in a recent article rant here[1] (skip to the "direct example" section if you're not interested in the rest of the read) where he reviews the best selling laptop on Amazon, which is ridiculously cheap... at a devil's bargain. 1. https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    At this point it’s like the old story about boots - too poor to afford cheap ones. Most people would be better served with a $600 Mac mini that will literally still be working & better in 5 years than in buying a $300 Amazon deal with 4GB ram which will run awful and die right outside warranty period. Maybe in a couple years apple will have prior year minis a little cheaper / refurbs available at $450-500ish too.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    $240 for that, huh. I just bought a $280 Acer laptop, still limited storage but better class, twice the ram, and with a CPU that actually has performance cores so it runs 2.5x-5x faster. It came with chromeOS, which is a limiting factor, but in this particular comparison it sounds like it's more of an upside than a downside.

leptons 2y ago

How did Apple "win"? They have always been a fraction of the market share of desktop/laptop computers, and they are only popular on mobile in the US, worldwide Android is dominant with 72% of the market. If you mean money===success, then sure, they have money, but do you compare their money to all the companies making PCs and all the companies making Android phones in the world combined? Apple fans have 1 single company to choose from, but PC/Android fans have hundreds of options - I can get a PC or Android in hundreds of form factors, whatever I need but Apple only sells what Apple makes. Sounds to me like PC/Android fans are the real "winners". >Apple won only after windows gave average home users a horrific bsod/virus/reboot hell of an existence for about 20 years. This hasn't been a thing for a very long time. I hear about as much about the spinning beach ball of death as I do BSOD. Apple is by no means perfect, or did you forget "you're holding it wrong".

steveBK123 2y ago
Everyone is a winner of their own story
CamJN 2y ago
AAPL 3.785T > MSFT 3.134T. In the only measure that matters for American companies, Apple won.
- brightlancer 2y ago
  That's a silly comparison: by that metric, Apple "won" against Saudi Aramco and Berkshire Hathaway, and Microsoft also "won" against them. Except that they aren't in the same business. On the desktop, Microsoft is still kicking Apple's ass. Even moreso for servers. The only place Apple "won" is on mobile, where Microsoft lost to _everybody_.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    I can't find the exact stat right now with some light google, but I recall there was a stat that while Apple doesn't have majority of user base, they essentially have an outsized share of the profit due to the average sales price & associated profit margins. In Windows space, MSFT gets their license money, and then its a commodity race to the bottom by the hardware makers who need to pay AMD/Intel for chips, MSFT for a license, and compete with 100 no-names OEMs for every penny.

dehrmann 2y ago

> Apple won only after windows... Apple won after Sony dropped the ball on HDD Walkmans and Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Blackberry failed to reject carrier bloatware. Macs are a side hustle for Apple, and MS is still the dominant player for desktop computing.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Apple has never "won" in the sense that Windows has always had by far more installed desktops. Android also by far runs more phones than iOS. Apple "won" the wealthy Western market, which is all that has ever mattered to them.