Chris Seibold's Profile

Krreagan, That isn't a picture of me. That is a snap of the guy who beat me up last week. Why he felt the need to pose after the win I'll never know.

"You’re a liar and a Mac hater. And so is everyone associated with Apple Matters/iPhone Matters." Zato3, you wound me sir. I do in fact have four Macs. I currently own a PowerMac g5 1.8 MHz (probably the best computer I've ever had), a G4 iBook with the screen removed that displays on an attached monitor (You can read all about doing that project in the Big Book of Apple Hacks), a MacPro I ordered on the day of release and a white MacBook I recently purchased to duplicate the mobility of the now stationary iBook. As far as iPods go: I've got an iPod shuffle, the silver one 1 GB (my favorite iPod by the way). An original iPod nano (the black one, color screen 4 GB you can discover how to make a really cheap iPod case in the Big Book of Apple hacks and see the nano as the nano used as the guinea pig), a 30 GB black Pirates of the Caribbean iPod and an 80 GB pirates iPod still unopened in the box. I got an iPhone the day the thing was released from an AT&T;store, I even stood in line for a few hours. I've got an apple TV , I watched No country for old men in HD on it (looked great) and sometime in the next week I'll be picking up an airport extremem base station. But wait, there is more. I built an entire desk around a G5 before I bought the G5. That is some forward thinking for a Mac hater. Pics or it didn't happen? Glad you asked: My Desk! See, I was using a G4 at the time but i knew a g5 wasn't too far away so I designed the desk to accomodate the upgrade. I can't help it, I get the techno lust sometimes. But will any of this make a believer out of you? Will the fact that about half the stuff I write gets me accused of being an apple sycophant ameliorate your obviously heartfelt concerns? Likely not, words won't sway some from the fervently held beliefs however erroneous they may be. So I recorded a special video just for you. To let you know how much I really love Macs.

I can see how you could get that out of the article Machelp but that wasn't my intention (though the fault is on me for not being clearer). Allow a digression into the genesis of this particular article. I'm am constantly torn by yearning for a new Mac and knowing that I don't really need one. When I look objectively at the situation a mini would do but, dammit man, I need something better just so I don't have a mini! Still, for my needs a mini is adequate. Which wasn't the conclusion I wanted to reach. Still it was an enlightening exercise because I also realized if I went with my first choice I'd be paying 2,000 just to say I didn't have a mini. That is a lot of money just to be pretentious. The intent of this article wasn't to say that people should only get the mini or anything like that. I was trying to point that, in many cases, when people slap down money for a new machine they are paying X for the solution to their problems and Y for the prestige factor. It is good to know what you're paying for.

Mac hating? That will be the day. I've got 4 of the things right now, plus 4 ipods and an iPhone. And an Apple TV. And I'm getting ready to buy another one. I just don't know which one. The iMac? Annoying glossy screen. The Mac mini? I just don't know. The MacPro? Too much dough... @evilcat For some isolated cases people really do need the high end stuff. Video work is extremely demanding for example and working with really large files in photoshop can cause some machines to choke I've been told. But the people who truly need the big iron know who they are and they usually use cost benefit analysis to decide on their hardware. If your Mac is tax deductible, or if work is paying, I'd buy the the top of the line Pro tower every time.

I concur Robo, but I'm not in charge of that stuff. I expect samples will show up on Amazon fairly soon.

Interesting comments, I appreciate them all and some good points. Oddly, know one addressed why the G5 1.8 sold so poorly at $1499. I think I wasn't clear enough in the article, I'm not trying to necessarily defend Apple's decisions on this issue but from Apple's perspective every foray into this realm has been met with failure and adding any more machines would muddy the product line. Apple loves selling machines, if the company thought the return of the 660av style machine would sell more computers they would certainly introduce a machine. Here's the weird thing: Every who wants this machine has a different idea about what they want. Some want a minitower (how the G4 Tower qualifies as a minitower I don't know) some want it four $499, some say $1500 is fine. Some want half the slots, some want a replaceable video card. Add all of that up and what you get is a gaping hole in the product line that can never be satisfied. If the form factor is smallish Apple is using laptop parts, if it is large it will too big, if it is too expensive the company has missed the opportunity etc, etc. I think what is happening is that everyone who doesn't like the current offerings comes up with their own should be computer and opines that Apple isn't making it. Except there are a million different would be gap fillers! In other words: one persons gap filler Mac mac is the next guys complete waste of a computer! Like UFOs the mythical gap computer is always, always whatever isn't in the product line!

Thanks Aayush! If you missed the "olden days" you missed some interesting times. Somewhere out there I suspect there are still people clinging to OS 9 as the last real mac ever!