wes's Profile

FM: just say no.

s1) the company (Apple) is not the same as their employees. i'm sure every manager dreams of that synergy, but not everyone has the time or inclination to live and breathe the words of Steve Christ, no, not even the human beings that get free Apple Camp t-shirts. if i go work in a supermarket i am not expected to come to work and recite the corporate mantra. i am an individual, a human being, and i will not tolerate some braindead customer / self-publishing Internet author to assume that just because i'm wearing my corporate uniform (my orange Apple Camp t-shirt), i am the signpost upon which the company should be judged. that is an illusion, that's what your new boss tells you on the first day of work but anybody who buys that is totally lost. it's also insulting to the humanity of the people working there that you would think that. i'm sure they have lives outside of the well-lit glass-enclosed retail space. at the end of the day they got a job there to make money, not spread the Gospel of Steve. 2) if someone fails to buy a computer based on their experiences in a retail store, then it's their loss... you don't have to follow people across the mall saying, "buy our computers, they're the greatest thing since individually-wrapped cheese!" most people would think someone was an idiot if they didn't buy a certain brand of shoes based on a rude or unavailable salesperson... they'd also be idiots if they didn't get the computer they wanted because a bunch of teens at the local Apple Store had better things to do. if someone wants a Mac bad enough, they'll get it. if not, let 'em use their little Gateway until the cows come home. moo. 3) not everyone wants to be greeted in a retail environment. i prefer to be left alone whenever possible. i don't even want them to say hello. every one of my friends agrees. if i have a question, i will ask, though the actual knowledge of the Apple Store employees is for another article... "i don't know exactly how fast the SuperDrive is, but i can tell you that it is Super" said a local Apple droid at the Chestnut Hills store in MA. if you're gonna give me answers like that, just don't answer at all. just leave me alone with all the shiny toys that i can't afford. i stay in the store longer when salespeople leave me alone too, imagine that. 4) if the author has a problem with this, he should go volunteer at this newfound retail location - yes, he should go work for free just to give Apple a good name, if he thinks that's really the issue. the teens and twentysomethings who work at the stores are probably not in on the Holy Quest To Increase Minority Market Share. no, they could be working at Foot Locker and care about their job just as much, ha ha. it'd be great if Apple could find 500 willing employees in each town that reallyreallytruly care about the "Apple Experience," but sometimes you just have to keep someone there to operate the register. so if the author really cares that much about putting gas in Steve's Gulfstream IV he should go down there and greet people himself and share his infinite knowledge of Apple's products with the world... if you really have that "sense of duty" (as one person here has mentioned). Sense of duty, the man said! Apple is the first corporation that people will pay to work for! some of you people swallow the image whole, just like good little consumers. Apple could be releasing a supercool OS based on the Windows 1.01 kernel and you'd lap it up. just think about that the next time you go to one of these bright retail locations and notice that they don't even have to put the words "The Apple Store" - no, just a big logo. "I Pledge Allegiance... To The Brand..." 5) just because Apple talked you into staying the night doesn't mean they have to respect you in the morning! Greg, next time you go in the store i want you to put a big flashing sign over your head that says, "HI YOU SILLY APPLE STORE EMPLOYEE, I AM GREGORY NG, SELF-PUBLISHING APPLE EVANGELIST - COME AND SERVE ME NOW, OR AT LEAST PRETEND TO, SINCE I ACTUALLY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COMPUTERS YOU'RE SELLING." for the love of god, Apple sells computers. they do not care about human beings any more than a competing corporation. in fact they surprise me with their hostility towards their own third party resellers and software developers. if they had 90% of the market they would treat all of you even worse than Microsoft treats their customers. just because you bought an expensive laptop or MP3 player from them does not mean that they owe you respect, a back rub, a free lunch, return shipping, a "pain and suffering" discount, a Burton snowboarding jacket... they don't have to listen to you complain about a dead pixel on your iMac... they don't have to take your suggestions for a videoPod with 100 jillabytes of storage. what they do owe you is a one year warranty and 90 days of support. they're a company, after all, engaged in the exchange of money for goods and services. it's irrelevant that their goods and services are some of the best.

i actually own an Alienware but i'm not too impressed. their old machines use off the shelf cases with a few tacked-on parts (ok, so they make them in lime green, yeah yeah). their new cases look a bit like a leftover action film prop. in fact i'd go so far as to say that Alienware's new boxes are like Hollywood's version of a luxury PC. and those laptops that change color when you move them? blech. there is a very rational and disciplined sense of logic at work behind the new case, and like much architecture in the relatively recent past (International Style, anyone?) most people will not understand... you'll hear ugly, sterile, plain, etc thrown around a lot in the coming months... and lazy criticisms like "cheese grater" too... i think the new PowerMacs will pay your bills and make your work area a little mroe awe-inspiring.

i'd like to chime in here and say that i agree not with the article, but with the tone of most of the posts here... the Powermac G5 is indeed a very serious piece of machinery designed for real pros. i always loved the look of the plastic G4's but when i put a pic of this beast next to the G5... it honestly makes the G4 look like a toy. i was shocked and appalled for about 5 minutes following the keynote but now i get it. and the more i read the white papers and such, the more i realize the beauty behind the design. September can't get here soon enough!

i'm a bit late in seeing this, but i also disagree that the Switch campaign was targeted to Mac users. as clever as Apple's ad-men might may be, i think it was a plain and simple call to Wintel users: "having problems? give us a try." that being said, i do have to agree that it was not the best decision. to spend the money on a campaign like that, just to further old-school rivalries? instead of saying, "man, you guys need to leave behind Windoze and get with OS X" they should have done what they usually do: wow people with their offerings. there have been no iPod ads where people say, "i used to have a 20 GB Nomad Jukebox. it sucked batteries like a vampire and it was too big to fit in my shirt pocket. but now i've got an iPod and i've lost 20 pounds and got a new job. thanks Apple!" instead, things like the iPod are sold (and sold in huge volumes) through nothing more than great design. all you have to do is hold up any Rio, Creative Labs, Nike, etc MP3 player next to the iPod and you instantly know which one you want. same goes for the other hardware, and OS X as well. show people what OS X looks like in action and it will sell itself. show it running MS Office, chat programs, and email programs to erase the idea that the Mac is a cutesy niche product for graphic designers. and show it doing the other things that are harder to do on Windows. one 30-second spot showing how easy it is to hook up your DV cam, launch iMovie, and start editing. it's the best truth in advertising you can get - just show the products in action. wouldn't work for every business, but in Apple's case i think that would be perfect, because the stuff they make is inherently impressive. forget this fifth-grade "mine sucks less than yours" stuff. and i have to add that those new Switch-styled iPod ads are looking rough. i think they need to tell Errol Morris to pack his bags.

i agree with your comments on the buffer coding, ephraim. and i agree that certain players are able to take care of the gaps between tracks, but as far as i know, that's accomplished through detecting the leading and trailing silences that are inherent in most mp3s (as a result of the codec used). most codecs add silence at the beginning and end of the file as a result of some behind-the-scenes math that's done to accomplish the high level of compression - i could point you to some scredible sources that explain this phenomenon. irrespective of this issue, the iPod doesn't offer gapless playback even with WAV files - there's still a pause of < 0.5 sec with files that have no real trailing/leading silence. so even if you had mp3s with no silence at the start/end, there would still be the buffer problem. i would even say that this is how most encoders operate. so i just want to point out that these are two separate issues - even with a better buffer, many mp3 encoders would still create files that aren't truly gapless. using a gapless encoding method AND fixing the alleged buffer issue would solve the problem, but it doesn't work the other way around.