The Wall Street Journal has the bi-yearly “Why Apple Is Going Down the Tubes?’ article (the article is actually called Is Apple Losing Its Sheen? [sub.]).
As recent Apple convert and follower of all that is business, the article drives me nuts. The first half of the article is how their share numbers continue to slip. This is nothing new is added to the discussion.
They then talk about how people aren’t in a hurry to buy new hardware. I haven’t seen any numbers on this, but I think the lifecycle of an Apple is longer than that of a PC. It will be three to four years between purchases for me versus my old two years. So, again I am not surprised.
The other thing I noticed is that they talk to resellers to get a sense of what it going on in the market. I think the Apple Stores are hurting resellers. When I was buying my PowerBook, everyone told me there was no advantage to buying from a reseller. So, I bought from the Apple store here in Milwaukee.
They also try to bring out the point that iPods will not bring Apple new customers. Wrong. That is exactly what happened with me. I got the iPod, loved it, and when I needed a laptop, I was deciding between an iBook and PowerBook, not between a PC and a Mac.
My last comment(s) is this. For those of you who have been thinking about making the switch, take a really long look at Apple. The biggest thing you will save is time and you can’t know what I am talking about until you have one. My Apple doesn’t crash. Start keeping a log of the number of times you have to restart your PC.
The other thing I love how well everything works together. We downloaded some video from our Sony camcorder the other day. All I had to do was plug the Firewire cable into the computer. iMovie immediately recognized the camera and I could control it remotely through the software. My Nokia 3650 talks directly with PowerBook via Bluetooth. You have no idea how much time you will save.