QOTD: What Would You Suggest Apple Do?

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Lince OS X, and stop their bashing of everything. Oh, and open their platforms to the third party.

I'm sure no one wants to have their product that they use and love bashed by some company that thinks its best at everything. Especially when half their points are either fabricated or not applicable today.
 
Open up the operating system so I can run it on any hardware that has the necessary computational power. Start making machines with REAL desktop processors and better cooling so that I'm not sacrificing performance and so that my laptop-grade proc isn't constantly hitting TJunction. Offer free "DRM to DRM-free" music upgrade on itunes. Allow re-download of purchased tracks if necessary, a la emusic...

I could think of way more...
 
market to more than one style. I hate shiny things. Make a mac that looks like a beast...

give users more options and OPEN OS X... meaning: allow us to install it on our own hardware instead of hardware that has been "designed by apple in CA".
 
Apple cant be competitive with their current buisness model. Then run a dumbed down unix OS with flashy buttons on a very specific set of hardware that requires extensive QA costs and expensive warranty service. Not to mention their bazillion dollar advertisement schemes.

The only way they could become competitive is to lower their Hardware prices, which would prevent them from keeping their QA labs. (And their advertisement team.) Or they'd have to compete on a software level with Microsoft, at which point they'd reveal that their OS is just a dumbed down Unix port, and would die out very quickly to Driver and security problems. (And likely canabalize their Hardware department as well)

Apple doesnt offer a truely unique and value oriented product for todays technology. They cater to a specific niche, and if they tried to move outside of that niche, they'd fail miserably.
 
They are not necessarily the same thing, but they serve an almost identical purpose. The only way Apple can get OSX to work so well in the first place is by limiting the hardware it has to support, much like game consoles do. Now, if they had a stripped-down OS that had the same basic functionality, if a different interface, that could be something for the open source community. Price it at $99 as-is without a GUIand let them customize it without giving them the "full Mac experience." Let the open-source community support themselves and their own drivers for whatever hardware they want; that lets people have access to it if they want to be frugal, but would still limit most consumers to buying Apple-branded hardware for the "real deal." You could even license it to OEM's to design their own GUI's for their own products, which they could then support themselves. As it is, it's free to develop your own software for Mac. You can make it do basically whatever you could want a Unix computer to do. They have all of the necessary tools available for free (assuming you already own a copy of the OS). I would say to make a reasonably-priced mid-tower for the masses, but that would go against Apple's principles of "approachable design". The "wow" factor is the generally compact design, and the simplicity of set-up. It looks at home almost anywhere, even places where typical PC towers look out-of-place. However, I doubt Apple could make an aluminum-bodied mid-tower at a reasonable price because of the cost of aluminum, and I seriously doubt they would even touch steel.
And in terms of the Microsoft ads about cheaper 15" and 17" notebooks, Apple refuses to use anything but the highest pixel-density displays they can ("the better to view OSX," I guess). Those displays can be pretty pricey, especially the ones that Apple insists on using for as best color accuracy as they can reasonably achieve from the factory on a notebook. So, forget a reasonably priced gaming notebook, they can't fit a decent discrete GPU in a 13" MacBook. At least, not without making it fatter than 1" and making it run hotter than the sun.
So, what would I tell Apple to do?
I'd tell them to hearken back to the days of the Apple I; barebones electronics, no case, make it do anything you can but without holding the customer's hand. They didn't want to pay for the "Mac Experience", because they don't need it. The average consumer (i.e. almost everyone who hasn't heard of Tom's anything, or anything similar) need a great deal more help and streamlining of everything; the average reader here does not. Here it's a convenience, not a necessity (as it could be said is the case with the general consumer).
I myself do pretty much all my work on a 2-year-old MacBook. No muss, no fuss; reliable as clockwork, almost zero maintenance required (any messes that needed cleaning were completely of my own doing and experimentation). NeoOffice is a great alternative work suite to Office and iWork, though iWork is actually pretty good; I just didn't feel like paying the reasonable $80 asking price. I have no need to play games on it; I have my trusty desktop PC for that. And because I reserve my PC for gaming, it is never exposed to anything that can slow it down. No malware, anti-malware, no nothing in the startup folder. If it isn't required to play games, it isn't involved, period. Boots to WinXP desktop, ready to go, in under a minute–even though it was built 5 years ago with a 2.6GHz Pentium 4 and 1GB of RAM, a 5400RPM 80GB system drive and a Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR...regular PCI (non-express) edition. The last time I reformatted with a clean install was a little more than a year ago, when I retired it from working duty. It's getting on in years, and I'll be building a new Win7 based gaming rig come next school year. But in the meantime, it still plays EVE Online at a playable 15fps. Which is more than I can say for my MacBook (though the new ones can do it just fine), but that's not what I originally bought it for now is it?

Oh, and one more thing.
Build in some sort of flexible in-house reworking of Wine into OSX. That would be great.
 
1) Licence OS X
2) Embrace it's BSD core with more BSD / Unix apps
3) Get on their knees and get MS to allow them to port DirectX (maybe not)
4) Dual & Quad socket machines with more DDR3 memory slots than you can count
5) Shave $1,000 off the price of every machine (or throw in a free iPod & iPhone with every purchase)
6) Adjust the core to allow Linux apps to run on OS X (even if they are carbon free) natively
7) Phenom II (in a dual / quad socket)
8) Develop a real HAL and allow X86-64, Multi GPU & Power/Cell chips on the same machine
9) More code/developer kits & compliers
 
I agree with curnel_d, the moment Apple starts to compete at the software level they will "fail miserable".
I love when people tell me this and that about OSX. How stable it is, how secure it is, blah, blah, blah. If they open it up to the rest of the PCs then they will need to modify it to allow the same things Windows allows. If they don't they will just be crushed.
And once they start making all of these changes that's when we'll see how "stable" it really is, how "secure" it really is, etc.
 
What would I have them do?
Exactly what they're doing. They're making tons of money and a lot of people like them. They make the people who buy their computers happy, and their market share is steadily growing.
The only thing I suggest is that TOMS HARDWARE STOP REPORTING STORIES ABOUT THEM. WE ARE PC ENTHUSIASTS.
 
its simple... lower prices to match PC levels...
the market will follow because the macs will have value and will not be seen as overpriced or snobby or pretentious... if macs were priced on par with pcs, the biggest hurdle would be cleared
 
I think everyone is ignoring one key fact about the OSX and other Mac OS's which prevent them from going on the PC... they cant.
If Macintosh OSes went on the PC they would provide a overall crap experience (they do already 😛) and Apple as a company would have to finally admit that it isnt their wizards in IT that mean they can keep up with Microsoft, its the fact that people insist on using the latest microsoft OS on 7+ yr old hardware as a right.
 
I would never buy anything apple, I bought a Macbook pro and an Ipod classic 80 GB. Big waste of money. There are better alternatives out there for half the price.

My advice to them is to release OSX so I can purchase it and dual boot, there are already hackintoshes out there. There is a market for that.

Also ipod shuffle 4gb no buttons?! and that price.
 
I am a Mac user and always will be but if I want to convert more Windows users to Mac the best way to do so is price. Apple makes great computers and has in my opinion, the best OS but most people never get the chance to switch because of the price points. I don't believe Apple should open up the OS to be installed on any PC hardware. That would be way too much hardware to support and would turn OSX into another over-stuffed OS much like Vista. They do however need to support more video cards and make their computers more user upgradable. I am looking forward to OpenCL support and where they take it but more user upgradable video cards would be nice to see.
 
1. Upgradability

2. Make users pay for performance, not the Apple name and the pearly white fixture that encloses the computer innards.
 
Stick with their current strategy! It seems that the posters here don't realize that you arn't their target market.

They are trying to cater to the stupider people of the world who are willing to spend a premium. They are sitting on cash right now and should be able to ride this economic downturn. Until there are indications this downturn is going to go past 2010, they dont' have much to worry about. Their entire business model is about high margins with a differentiation focus strategy.

 
Well i can't say that allowing me to put an apple OS on my computer would make me anymore inclined to buy apple products, simply because i dont like their os. At school, when i ask why someone got a mac instead of a pc, the reply is always "because they look so much nicer" or "because its easier to use than windows". However, these same people wouldn't be able to tell you what a quad core i7 was or what GeForce refers to. It's like the word performance never entered their minds when they were out spending all of that money. Maybe they don't need performance though, and they just want good looks. I guess everyone is entitled to spend their money however they want.

Personally, apple's OS will probably never appeal to me because i have grown up with windows. However their best chance at winning my vote would be to come out with computers that aren't aimed at the aesthetically inclined. Come out with computers other than the shiny white ones that scream "i have no performance/power inside this case!" And be competitively priced. Remove the apple tax. I'm tired of seeing people flaunt their shiny new apple products all because they had to empty their savings into it. This is why i have never owned an ipod, because there are other much cheaper mp3's with more features.

I am really interested in the iphone though. But its the same case with the iphone too. i am not going to shell out that kind of cash if i think someone can come out with a product just as good but cheaper. Unfortunately right now there is nothing that catches my eye as much as the iphone. So with that being said, maybe make a price drop on the iphone :)

In conclusion, and in my case, i don't think i will ever be in the market for apple computers, but possibly their phones/mp3's if their innovation continues to beat the competition. I will give apple that much; they are very innovative.
 
"I am a Mac user and always will be but if I want to convert more Windows users to Mac the best way to do so is price. Apple makes great computers and has in my opinion, the best OS but most people never get the chance to switch because of the price points. I don't believe Apple should open up the OS to be installed on any PC hardware. That would be way too much hardware to support and would turn OSX into another over-stuffed OS much like Vista. They do however need to support more video cards and make their computers more user upgradable. I am looking forward to OpenCL support and where they take it but more user upgradable video cards would be nice to see."

Vista became "over-stuffed" because they tried to make it more like OSX; they tried to make it more animated and nicer looking. I would like to hear how vista is overstuffed compared to osx. i already know how it is overstuffed compared to xp for all of you xp guys who want to lash out at vista lol

And why is there too much hardware to support when putting osx on a pc? how come windows is fine with mac hardware? You ask to make the macs more upgradeable, but that is just going to require what? more hardware support and a more "overstuffed" os. The only way to make a mac less limited, more compatible, and less basic is to essentially make it more complicated, "like" windows, even though i think you can find plenty of kids under 8 that find windows completely accessible, even though they probably wouldn't be able to diagnose any errors when the computer freezes or crashes. I do think they could find the ctrl+alt+del and end the task :)

I'm glad you love your mac, and it really is all about what works for you, but i think the things you are requesting will turn mac into everything you don't like about windows :/
 
It's been said many times, but I'll repeat it: Make their OS available for separate purchase.

Of course, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to overcharge for their hardware.
 
"But Apple's got some issues. This week, analysts reported that Apple took one of its biggest market hits ever and in fact, lost that 1-percent market share that it worked so hard to capture."

First I'd like to see proof of that statement, since last I heard apple was making record profits and sales in the companies history.

2nd there is only 2 recommendations I would give:

- They need a tower machine (no monitor) with the spec's of an imac (but better upgrade options). And priced to compete with the mainstream. This is a huge hole in their line-up.

- They can make the Mac OS usable and supported off mac's and for mainstream. Along with their iLife and related software. It would hurt hardware sales but greatly increase software sales (higher margines).


 
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