Doug Petrosky's Profile

I think you are wrong too. The G4 Cube was the closest thing apple made in the past decade to what people really want but the went crazy with the price, charging more for it than the tower and dramatically more for it than the iMac/eMac you could buy as an alternative with a display. They don't make this box because of fear it will eat away at iMac sales. To break it down, you can buy an iMac for $1200 with a very nice 20" display. Remove that one component and you could sell the same box for $900 and people would not have to re-purchase their displays with every computer (my 20" apple display still looks great). Better yet, they could drop the price to closer to $800 by making the PCI video card optional and putting intel video on board. The other option is to make an iMac with a door for the video card and doors for up to three drives (optical or hard drives). With 20" the minimum size for displays, there is a lot of extra room for video cards and drives. I'd even recommend they add an express slot for unexpected other upgrades. Lack of expansion is not a plus. It is something we deal with as mac users because we love the products.

Dude, if you don't find value in .Mac don't pay for it but don't dismiss it's value. I did a google search for WebDAV storage and the first 3 sites were crazy expensive. I finally found Bingodisk that offers 10GB of storage for only $20/year http://www.epidirect.com/WebDAV/PStore/SFees.htm http://www.filesanywhere.com/PowerPlanPricing.htm http://www.i2drive.com/products/account_personal.jhtml http://www.bingodisk.com/ Regarding backup and how it compares to superduper and time machine, there is no comparison. Time Machine is a full local backup solution but if something physical happens to your machine, you are done so having online backup of key files is very valuable. You mentioned Flickr pro at $25 (it is not worth debating the quality of each). So, last year I paid $60 for .mac. Or $15 more than flickr and bingo for all of the additional integration .mac provides. This is a no brainer value equation to someone who uses the services.

I can't imagine that this will affect the iPod or iTunes in any noticeable way. I find it laughable that people talk about the iTunes/iPod lock in. If you do the math (number of songs divided by the number of iPods sold) the) the average comes out at like 20 songs/ipod. The truth is that the vast majority of music still comes from CD's, or other people's CD's. Until that changes nobody will really care about DoubleTwist. As for wether or not it will benefit anyone? I'd say not yet. Today iTunes is in competition with CD prices. If it becomes the dominate delivery system for music, then it will be important for alternatives to exist and I'm sure they will. Both from companies like MicroSoft as well as from Phone carriers, and even possibly from some next generation XM type of system. Only one thing is certain in my mind. DRM will rule the day in the future. The content holders need to get a handle on how widely their products get distributed and DRM will give them that ability eventually.

wackybit, you comments are not totally off the mark but are not totally honest ether. A quick check of some of the new releases show a wide spread. Some Albums on iTMS were 9.99, while the same CD might sell for over $15 on amazon. Others, I found where iTMS listed them for $20 and amazon had them for $14. Some had slightly different song selections (bonus videos on iTMS and bonus songs on the CD). So I guess what I'm saying is that if 128kbps does not bother you (which obviously it does not for many people) then you should not blindly buy from the iTMS assumng it will be the lowest album price around, but nor should you discount it. And lets face it, much of the allure to the iTMS is the instant gratification. As my wife put it just last night. "Man that's a whole lot easier than going to the store to buy music".

Chris, ether you missed the big picture or you didn't express it very well. If we can get to downloadable content as a replacement for TV broadcasting why would anyone ever purchase a DVD again? and would Cable still be necessary. That is where the iTMS ultimately ends up, as a replacement for cable. There is still work to be done. Like getting the rest of the content from ABC and NBC and signing CBS but that is all doable and that in and of it's self will not be enough. For this to work, it has to enter HD. Lets say that tomorrow Apple put the entire Pixar library on the iTMS in 720p for $25 or 1080p for $30. At the same time they announce a new mac mini based on the single core version of the new intel chip that can decode this information (also we will assume they make the mini just enough bigger that it can hold a 3.5" HD to reduce cost and increase storage). Apple could scoop the industry on HD content delivery. Immediately start offering back episodes from their current partners in HD and they could start to define the industry. iTunes and the iPod worked because Apple had direct control of content. Until Apple has some control over the content, ether through iTMS or by signing deals with DirecTV and cable providers they can not make a competitive product to TiVo and the current crop of PVR's. But if they are given access to the raw Digital information all bets are off. It is just my feeling that nobody is going to give them access so they need to simply take it.

You are reading too deeply I think. As long as Office runs in emulation (and I'm sure it does) MS would have no problem offering discounts with the expatiation of getting upgrades once they go native. This sounds more like a MS promo trying to keep sales up as people start to wait for the guaranteed free upgrade to a Intel version of Office. As for iWork, it is not yet even contending with Office. It is a home product and office is a business product. One is about creativity and the other is about compatibility. I will say that it is a safe bet that when the first Intel based Mac's show up that they will be constrained and as such non-US markets will be delayed by as much as a month as it seems to be with most products. If you want to think this deeply about product rollouts, riddle me this. If the rumors are true and both a mini and a laptop are announced in January, what chip will it use? How will that chip compare to the current 2Ghz G5 chips now shipping in the new iMac's? Why I ask is because I can't think of a good out come. If the chip is faster than the one in the iMac G5 sales of the iMac will tank until they rev the line (so why not just do it simultaneously). If it is slower than the G5 how much of an upgrade will this whole switch to Intel appear to be (especially with emulation and compatibility issues)? There is just not enough performance room between the iBook and mini and the iMac G5 for Apple to make what would appear to be a major performance update to the first two without having them run over the latter. I think it is likely that January will bring Intel announcements with late january early February introductions but it just seems to me that the announcements have to affect a larger section of the Mac line.

Time to get serious with the mini. 1. Yes, G5. 2. PCI express video in a socket. Standard card can stay the min 64MB core image card but give upgrade options for 128MB, higher end cards that can run cool and quiet. (use the same standard for all powerbooks and iMac G5's) 3. PCMCIA slot 4. Digital Audio out

mozart11 The family pack is not 250MB space it is 250MB for Primary and 100MB each for 4 others. This means it is 650MB of storage. So it breaks down like this for me. $60 250MB primary account $30 each for 100MB secondary accounts. Better yet, every year Apple offers a deal so my actual cost was $150 for .mac family making it $50 for primary and $25 for each secondary. Your hosting example just makes it clear how crazy the author was and how reasonable .Mac really is. As an individual you can get 1GB of storage with WebDAV access for $120/year (if you buy .mac at a discount and add drive space). Sure you got 2GB for $30 less but it is not as integrated into the OS and that is worth something. If you add in the value Apple has given in free software (Virex, iBlog, Backup, PhotoStudio, The Sims, Sims expansion, Marble Blast, WingNuts etc.) and software discounts as well as other incentives and training, and the premium doesn't seem like much at all. People who think about "fixing" .mac need to remember that it is not the storage space, but the bandwidth that is expensive. I'll give a counter proposal as to how to increase .mac sales. First, I'd say that storage could be increased by maybe double but this is something that Apple and all hosting sites will have to do every couple years. Bandwidth gets cheaper each year and as it does Apple should pass that along to it's members. Replace the family pack with a low cost, reduced storage offer and a discounted addon package. There is no reason to pay for 5 accounts if you only need 3 and there is no reason to not allow a family of 7 the same benefits as a family of 5. So at todays storage levels. I'd price it something like this. Standard 250MB - $79 Add On 100MB - $19 Individual 50MB - $29 I'd further, Give away 1 year individual accounts to everyone who purchased a new mac and allow them to upgrade/renew to a standard package for $50 anytime during that year. As for general improvements to the system. Better secure collaboration. Right now you can password websites and your public folder but Apple should make it possible for .Mac to honor application level passwords. To understand what I mean here are a couple examples. 1) Allow me to authorize users to access and update my Calendars, Address Book etc. 2) Allow third party developers the same interface so that I could give access to something like Mac Family Tree to certain family members for update. 3) Filemaker database could be hosted and support user level passwords. 4) iBlog hosting. The list of possibilities is nearly endless.