New Laptop

Originally Posted by rsanchez

What hardware? The iPod that your daughter drops every day when she gets on the bus? Seriously go "feel" one of the newer macbooks or macbook pros, the actual physical construction is much more durable. The displays are wayyyy better, the OS is way more intuitive, the peripherals (in my overly humble opinion) have way more thought put in to design and use, and on and on and on.

The Touch was mine and the two iPod's were my 17 and 19 year sons (at the time that the items were broke). Dropping definitely wasn't the issue. I can assure you of that. It was from useage not dropping.

I have looked and felt the items. yes, the are nice no doubt but I would prefer to get similar products if not better hardware spec's (faster CPU, more memory in the computer, ...) for cheaper.

The OS and being intuitive is definitely a matter of opinion. I find Windows very intuitive since I have been using it for 15 years. I did work on a friends Mac 12 months ago because they wanted some settings changed. I was able to find it but it wasn't where I would expect it.

As for browsers, who uses the default browser. I can have safari, google chrome, firefox, ... That list goes on.... There are alternatives to everything.

Then there is the iPhone... Well, I'll keep my HTC Evo Android phone. At least I can find some good pron on it.

Originally Posted by dabell

The Touch was mine and the two iPod's were my 17 and 19 year sons (at the time that the items were broke). Dropping definitely wasn't the issue. I can assure you of that. It was from useage not dropping.

Okay, in all fairness, the itouch/ipod/iWhateverYouHold in your hands, always suffer a lot of abuse. I've been annoyed when my ipod (3 years old at the time) stopped holding a charge, but you've got to expect stuff like this when these devices are typically beaten up. The iTouch has a glass screen so it's susceptible to a decent amount of issues and I can feel your complaints there. I've gone through three iphones, I've dropped an iphone from my pocket while riding a motorcycle at an excessive speed and haven't broken the screen (just scratched the hell out of the case), and then a few months later it fell off a hotel bed to carpetted floor and the screen shattered - so what gives. I'm not saying the stuff is industricable, and I don't think that apple sets a "ticking timebomb" in their devices to blow up when the warranty expires, but there's literally nothing to compare their devices to to be fair. I mean what other phones out there right now (maybe something that came out recently) has a screen that's covered in glass, with as good of a picture, etc...

I have looked and felt the items. yes, the are nice no doubt but I would prefer to get similar products if not better hardware spec's (faster CPU, more memory in the computer, ...) for cheaper.

You pay money for the name, and when doing so you're paying for a lot more R&D than the competition puts into their products hands down.

The OS and being intuitive is definitely a matter of opinion. I find Windows very intuitive since I have been using it for 15 years. I did work on a friends Mac 12 months ago because they wanted some settings changed. I was able to find it but it wasn't where I would expect it.

I'm not talking about where settings menus are located or where the top toolbar is, I'm talking more about overall "usability" of the OS. Now I use a lot of add-ons (like QuickSilver, an app launcher) that make it more useful to me, but out of the box, there's no doubt OSX is more usable than any version of Windows in my mind - no matter if you're a "simple" or advanced user.

As for browsers, who uses the default browser. I can have safari, google chrome, firefox, ... That list goes on.... There are alternatives to everything.

You missed the point.

Then there is the iPhone... Well, I'll keep my HTC Evo Android phone. At least I can find some good pron on it.

If you had the iPhone and were near WiFi you could use facetime and see live streaming porn.... Just throwing that out there .

Originally Posted by rsanchez

Okay, in all fairness, the itouch/ipod/iWhateverYouHold in your hands, always suffer a lot of abuse. I've been annoyed when my ipod (3 years old at the time) stopped holding a charge, but you've got to expect stuff like this when these devices are typically beaten up. The iTouch has a glass screen so it's susceptible to a decent amount of issues and I can feel your complaints there. I've gone through three iphones, I've dropped an iphone from my pocket while riding a motorcycle at an excessive speed and haven't broken the screen (just scratched the hell out of the case), and then a few months later it fell off a hotel bed to carpetted floor and the screen shattered - so what gives. I'm not saying the stuff is industricable, and I don't think that apple sets a "ticking timebomb" in their devices to blow up when the warranty expires, but there's literally nothing to compare their devices to to be fair. I mean what other phones out there right now (maybe something that came out recently) has a screen that's covered in glass, with as good of a picture, etc...

You are probably correct but I had my Original HTC Touch smartphone for nearly 3 years and never had one issue with the touch screen. That phone definitely took a licking and continued to work. The case was even cracked because it fell out of my hands and the screen still worked.

Originally Posted by rsanchez

You pay money for the name, and when doing so you're paying for a lot more R&D than the competition puts into their products hands down.

The processors are both Intel today. What more R&D does Intel do for Toshiba (example) compared to Apple? Absolutely more more R&D. That can also be applied to memory, motherboards, ... in the computers.

Originally Posted by dabell

You are probably correct but I had my Original HTC Touch smartphone for nearly 3 years and never had one issue with the touch screen. That phone definitely took a licking and continued to work. The case was even cracked because it fell out of my hands and the screen still worked.

Like I mentioned before, you're comparing apples to oranges. I too used to have an HTC phone (PPC 6700 one of the first half decent smart phones at the time), they're totally different devices. And to the best of my knowledge, the iPhone is the only glass screen smart phone around, naturally it's going to have some complaints about cracked screens, etc etc, what do people expect - devices aren't bullet proof.

The processors are both Intel today. What more R&D does Intel do for Toshiba (example) compared to Apple? Absolutely more more R&D. That can also be applied to memory, motherboards, ... in the computers.

Oh ok, ya because R&D is just about chip development, memory, etc.. Actually it's not... R&D = research and development. Not the word "development", this is way more than chip manufacturing (which apple does do and has been for some time), battery development (oh wait, Apples been doing that for a long time, maybe thats why my macbook pro with a 17in screen has 7 hours of battery life?), software development, etc... You're forgetting there's more to this than just putting some chips together and throwing a label on the box (Apple != DELL, HP, COMPAQ, TOSHIBA, etc). Apple spends tons of money really pioneering "technologies" and applications and it's unfair to compare that to Toshiba, Dell, et all, who make devices and not whole solutions. Multi touch devices are a perfect example of this.

Originally Posted by rsanchez

You pay money for the name, and when doing so you're paying for a lot more R&D than the competition puts into their products hands down.

I'm not talking about where settings menus are located or where the top toolbar is, I'm talking more about overall "usability" of the OS. Now I use a lot of add-ons (like QuickSilver, an app launcher) that make it more useful to me, but out of the box, there's no doubt OSX is more usable than any version of Windows in my mind - no matter if you're a "simple" or advanced user.

Actually the sad part is that due to Apple's growth and the switch to using the same cheap Taiwanese stuff every other OEM uses their R&D and QC just hasn't kept up - it used to be one of their biggest advantages and I hope they start pumping more money into that side of things because their support really can't keep up. The draconian measures they take to clamp down on any dissent or complaints on their forums and other avenues of support (not to mention their insane legal team who clamps down on consumers who have the gall to air their grievances) are also pretty pathetic. My hope is that the whole antennagate debacle starts to cultivate some cultural change on their campus in this regard.

As for your point about UI it's completely personal preference. Personally OS X, while beautiful, is incredibly clunky and poorly thought out in my opinion - but it's just that - my opinion. And don't get me started about trying to get into its guts or god forbid try to do something basic like resize/repartition your disks lol.

Originally Posted by pesos

Actually the sad part is that due to Apple's growth and the switch to using the same cheap Taiwanese stuff every other OEM uses their R&D and QC just hasn't kept up - it used to be one of their biggest advantages and I hope they start pumping more money into that side of things because their support really can't keep up. The draconian measures they take to clamp down on any dissent or complaints on their forums and other avenues of support (not to mention their insane legal team who clamps down on consumers who have the gall to air their grievances) are also pretty pathetic. My hope is that the whole antennagate debacle starts to cultivate some cultural change on their campus in this regard.

On a percentage basis of their gross profit, apple spends a ton of money on R&D, it's a waste to quote figures, but those shinny cool devices that work well don't come cheap.

OH ya, because Microsoft doesn't go around doing anything remotely as bad. I noticed you were in the bay area, your neighbor SalesForce just settled a stupid nasty lawsuit from Microsoft for patent infringement, if you know anything about the case it's obviously a bunch of BS, just anti competitive. Or how about the massive anti-trust cases that were filed against them by numerous countries (although I agree they're bogus). Or the handling of so many other consumer issues.

As for your point about UI it's completely personal preference. Personally OS X, while beautiful, is incredibly clunky and poorly thought out in my opinion - but it's just that - my opinion. And don't get me started about trying to get into its guts or god forbid try to do something basic like resize/repartition your disks lol.

It is preference. I've switched a ton of people to apple products, some by necessity (ie they work in my office) or some by just convincing them to buy an apple when they bought a new laptop. It's not because I'm some zealot, I just think they're better products. Not one of these people has ever complained and not a single one has gone back.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about, it's not really that hard to resize or repartition a disk, I've done it before without a hitch.