[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Mac OS Dwindles in Importance to Apple here

[rodinka47]

In some ways the Mac with a TrackPad is almost iOS! Seems that the ease of function is integrating itself with the whole of Apple's devices! I am for the most part a Trog when it comes to Computers and iOS but the truth is the beauty of the System is stunning. My iMac, iPhone and AppleTV are so solidly unified and the ease of access is so encouraging that I find it is fun to use as well as simple. I think that Steve Jobs' idea that it is really important to think outside the box is the revolution. I was sold the moment I bought an iPod 2 years ago!

[Ash]

A very smartly written article by another Apple slave. Please note whenever they talk about Windows, then mention Apple.. But in this article, how not even a single time the term windows doesnt popup.

[Papaspud]

So this article is saying, the Mac is dying and apple doesn't care..... I agree. the problem with their business model is when the iPhone is no longer the "cool" thing, where are their revenues going to come from.

I'm thinking apple has topped out and will begin a slide back down from the lofty heights that they have achieved.

[dreamerof]

Papaspud, on 12 February 2012 - 12:30 AM, said:

So this article is saying, the Mac is dying and apple doesn't care..... I agree. the problem with their business model is when the iPhone is no longer the "cool" thing, where are their revenues going to come from.

I'm thinking apple has topped out and will begin a slide back down from the lofty heights that they have achieved.

Sorry to correct you but the article is not saying the Mac is dying, it saying that the Mac is growing but that it isn't growing as fast as iOS devices are. Mac continues to show YoY growth whereas PCs are showing YoY loses. So your premise that apple has topped out is severely flawed as evidenced by apples continued growth with no signs of that growth ending any time soon.

[Evildave]

The only valid conclusion from the article's stated evidence, is that Apple is making more and shipping more iOS devices than OS X devices.

Apple has stated no difference in their goals to sell Macs with OS X on them. No new or different focus, other than convergence of elements within the different technologies that they mentioned a year or so back.

One may as well conclude that because the Pepsi Corporation sells more Pepsi, they would cease selling all other beverages, snacks, etc.
http://www.pepsico.com/

Or perhaps you'd equally believe that because Chevron sells more gasoline, that they'll stop selling diesel fuels?

But why should we expect any comprehension from people who obviously don't even understand that having CHOICES, besides 'editions' of what Micro$uck crams down your throats with the garbage that most PC makers sell is a 'good thing'?

Yeah, keep wishing and hoping and praying to your various gods that Apple and Google and everyone else disappears, so only Microsoft exists. I know you love it when Microsoft decides that something like 'Windows Vista' is good enough for the likes of their idiot users, because their idiot users don't have any other choices (that they're aware of), so there's absolutely no reason to do anything right. Just squeeze that 'PC Operating System Monopoly' for all it's worth, with their idiot users cheering the buggy, virus-ridden monoculture that they're trapped in.

Another minor thing that will keep the OS X machines around is XCode and the requirement for a 'development platform', other than groping and pecking on a tablet. Phones and tablets are a growing market, and an ever more important market, but Apple will still be making nice little impossibly thin and light notebooks and pretty desktop machines, for a long time to come, since people will still be needing big displays, and typing, for a long time to come, too.

[CraigTateronis]

This is pretty ominous. I hate iOS and everything it stands for, yet people seem to fall for it hook, line and sinker.

6 years from now everyone will be scratching their heads when they realize they are locked into a walled garden where Apple decides what they can and can't use and takes a 30% cut off of whatever you buy.

It will be just like cars, nobody seems to know how they work anymore and companies have gone to enormous lengths to ensure that you can't even try.

It's great for business and the average moron, but when those companies aren't around anymore to help you with your product that has been designed to break after 2 years, the world will be in major trouble.

[Evildave]

I dunno. I suppose six years from now, if 'everyone' is locked into that same 'walled garden', then at least they won't be 'enjoying' the freedom to get infected from the anarchistic jungle that they are locked into, now, with PCs of various flavors.

The likelihood that Apple will take over to the same extent that MICROSOFT already controls desktop/notebook PCs is laughable. Insane.

You have Android, Linux, Microsoft and other operating systems competing for the mobile world. Apple is only in the lead 'for now'.

And I actually 'know how cars work'. This is a good example to explain why Apple is 'winning' (for now).

It's not that complex. Far less so than before. Really simple compared to the vacuum based monstrosities of the 70's and 80's and early 1990's. You have an engine block, with pistons, flywheel, crankshaft, valves... with various inputs and outputs and timings controlled by a computer. The transmission is still just a box of gears in goop. If it's automatic, it's again controlled by an electronic computer, rather than a fluidic 'brain'.

Most of the reason people 'don't understand cars anymore' is because all of the things that used to CONSTANTLY BREAK, like the points, timing, condenser, spark plugs etc. got replaced with reliable electronics that don't burn your spark plugs out for 100,000 miles. Similarly, your rube-goldberg mechanical carburetor got replaced by electronic fuel injection, controlled by the same computer. The nightmarish miles of (eventually leaky) vacuum lines got replaced with some SIMPLE sensors and cables. And since about 1996, the computer has an OBDII port, which you can plug a little USB gizmo into, and ASK the engine/transmission what's wrong, and it will generally give you a code that can be looked up on the internet, to isolate the issue to one or two components.

People don't understand cars, because they do not have to, anymore. All the stuff they used to have to dink with to keep it going has been replaced with things that nobody ever has to dink with. Every gas station was a 'service station' with a garage to fix the things ALWAYS going wrong with EVERY car. Now they all sell snacks. A thousand mechanical gadgets and intricate little gizmos that could 'go wrong' got removed and replaced with one simple electronic 'brain'. The cars don't even LEAK much, anymore. When's the last time you had to pop the hood to fix a wet distributor? Change the spark plugs and points? Pull the air cleaner and tap on the carburator with a screwdriver handle to unstick something, and then drown it in carburator cleaner? Even add water to the cooling system? If it was built after 1996, or so, that answer is 'never'. There aren't points. There isn't a carburator. The cooling system is sealed. It's all made of very reliable parts that seldom go wrong, IF you leave them alone.

Electric cars are even simpler. Charge Controller, Batteries, Motor Controller, AC Inductive Motor. No transmission required (though they often have a single-step gearbox). Subtract thousands more greasy, fickle mechanical parts. A computer waveform generator and a MONSTER battery powered amplifier, and an AC motor. That's 99% of what you need to know.

What Apple is offering with these iOS devices is the same thing as modern cars.

Things that don't 'break'.

Few 'parts' to go wrong.

You don't have to 'know' anything to make it work.

Just like people WANT.

Not that you can't download XCODE and develop whatever you like for your iOS device. It's free. $90 a year for the developer program, if you want to 'go live' with what you make and try to earn yourself an income. Apple takes 30%, you get 70%. A downright AWESOMELY fair deal. You don't have to have 'permission' from Apple to run whatever you like on your own, as long as you aren't distributing it to other users.

I don't hear you complaining about how your XBOX or PS3 or WII is 'locked down' in the same way. Shouldn't you be raging about how you can't run whatever you like on any one of these? They're just computers, after all. And they require a 'developer kit' that costs THOUSANDS, and require downright faustian developer agreements. But then you can run what you like... as long as you don't distribute it outside the developer channels. Just like an iOS device.

You think Amazon is 'nicer' about the software for its Kindle? Heck, try to even get the door open on all kinds of Android stores, especially for embedded devices.

And Microsoft is working hard to 'close up' their own windoze platform. For all the same reasons.

So if you want total freedom to shoot yourself in the foot any way you like, you want Linux. EVERY other platform is going to be like iOS. Not because 'Apple' is making it that way. Because it makes sense for the '99%' who are completely ignorant about how computers work.