The fall of the Apple Empire?

[The iApple 0]

According to Yahoo! Tech:

'Hey, it's been a good, long run. The stock is way up. The customers love the company. Every product (well, almost) is a smash hit. Apple has long been able to do no wrong.

But the times they are a changin'. Apple is now finding itself beseiged, on a nearly daily basis, with bad press and one case of customer outrage after another. In the last few days, the initially-loved iPhone 3G has been the subject of numerous complaints (and now lawsuits) about its service quality and had a huge security flaw revealed that lets anyone who picks up an iPhone bypass the password prompt. MobileMe is now a full-on disaster. You've got the Psystar countersuit. And in Britain, the company had a TV commercial banned for being misleading (since you can't run Flash or Java on an iPhone).

Most recently, Apple even faced a small customer backlash when it banned an independent comic strip from the iPhone App store because it felt the animations were too violent. (You are welcome, however, to buy a copy of the ultra-gory Saw or Saw II from the iTunes Store.) Even mega-fan Michael Arrington has called the company to the carpet for what he has deemed an "unacceptable" rate of failure of a variety of Apple products.

Why, even the news media can't be pleased any more: In an obvious "accident," Bloomberg reported that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had died.

What's going on here? Growing pains, for starters. As any company grows, its attention to detail and its level of customer service almost always falters to some degree. It can't help that Apple is so distracted: The company has suddenly gotten its hands in so many industries and so many countries with its iPhone 3G launch that it's clearly struggling to keep up with the intricacies of a worldwide telco presence. But maybe there's more to it: Customers really seem to be tiring of Apple's strongarm, radio-silence tactics, and what was once seen as a maverick alternative to the establishment is rapidly becoming a mainstream monster itself. The same guys who used to chime in with "buy a Mac" in message boards are now the ones who say "buy Linux." (Don't let me down, fellas!)

Other theories are welcome, of course. In light of all the chaos and wringing of hands, I find it difficult to explain Apple's glowing report in the latest version of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which gave Apple its greatest gain ever in overall satisfaction and puts it 10 points ahead of its nearest rival in the computer industry. Is it a love-hate relationship or what? One explanation: People just really hate Windows Vista that much.'

[iGo 0]

Some points are quite valid... while some are exaggerated.

But I can't help but wonder, this piece of article coming from company (yahoo!) who has seen downpath since last few months... and share of it's own problems (rather big problems).

[Phoshi 0]

Wait, I thought apple were about to overtake microsoft <_<

In any case, I doubt it. Apple still has the 'cool' image.

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

Wait, I thought apple were about to overtake microsoft <_<

Not even close:

Microsoft

Market cap US$ 259.75 Billion (2007)

Revenue ▲ US$ 60.420 Billion (2008)[6]

Operating income ▲ US$ 22.492 Billion (2008)[6]

Net income ▲ US$ 17.681 Billion (2008)[6]

Total assets ▲ US$ 72.793 Billion (2008)[6]

Total equity ▲ US$ 36.286 Billion (2008)[6]

Employees 89,809 in 105 countries (2008)[7]

Apple

Revenue US$24.01 billion ▲ (TTM FY 2007)[1]

Operating income US$4.41 billion ▲ (TTM FY 2007)

(18.37% operating margin)[1]

Net income US$3.50 billion ▲ (TTM FY 2007)

(14.56% profit margin)[1]

Employees Approximately 28,000 (July 3, 2008)[2]

[Phoshi 0]

No, I was referencing the topic over in GD

[Jeter2Fan93 0]

Don't forget the MobileMe disaster. While I'm as annoyed as the next person about the recent Apple issues, if they were to go under because of this, why hasn't Microsoft gone under from the Vista failure?

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

Because luckily there's people who aren't complete idiots and still try Vista, thus figuring out that 95% of the claims against it are pure, unrefined bullshit.

[pedromonge 0]

I love my Vista, and I would never go back to ugly ass XP. XD

[Phoshi 0]

I was reading an article(somewhere on tweakguides.com I think) that provided quite amusing quotes.

basicly, every version of windows has been called bloated, except ME which received the most praise when it was first released XD

[KAWSquared 0]

Alright Pimpalot, I'm getting sick of your Vista bullshit. I own both XP and Vista, I'm forced to use Vista at school, learned how to use it, blah blah blah.

It's slow, unnecessary features are a mild to moderate annoyance, it's failure to deliver in terms of a GUI piss me off (like when you maximize your windows, you lose transparency, srs wtf) and it's just overall a very, very annoying operating system. XP is so much better. I honestly do not care for any of the features it offers me and I hope it's pulled off the shelves.

As for Apple, they're getting too ahead of themselves. Making these commercials stating about how OS X is better than Windows will only lead to a more embarrassing failure. The bigger you are, the harder you fall. They're just stacking it up, waiting for one really bad failure, and it'll all come toppling down like a Jenga tower.

What'll happen if Snow Leopard is a complete disaster?

[Phoshi 0]

Dude.

Any OS at school sucks.

[KAWSquared 0]

They use Vista Ultimate. I also have Vista Ultimate.

[The iApple 0]

Alright Pimpalot, I'm getting sick of your Vista bullshit. I own both XP and Vista, I'm forced to use Vista at school, learned how to use it, blah blah blah.

It's slow, unnecessary features are a mild to moderate annoyance, it's failure to deliver in terms of a GUI piss me off (like when you maximize your windows, you lose transparency, srs wtf) and it's just overall a very, very annoying operating system. XP is so much better. I honestly do not care for any of the features it offers me and I hope it's pulled off the shelves.

As for Apple, they're getting too ahead of themselves. Making these commercials stating about how OS X is better than Windows will only lead to a more embarrassing failure. The bigger you are, the harder you fall. They're just stacking it up, waiting for one really bad failure, and it'll all come toppling down like a Jenga tower.

What'll happen if Snow Leopard is a complete disaster?

KAW, in many schools, they have generic/clone PCs, and many of those PCs, their drives suck. They don't have the system requirements to correctly run Vista. Aero, well, my school's PCs (which has vista) they don't use Aero, they use the Basic theme.

Snow Leopard, which I've heard, Snow Leopard will just update it's visual style, no apps or system update.

[Don Mateo 0]

Actually Snow Leopard is focusing on "under the hood" improvements - better support of multiple cores, etc.

Anyway this article is just another example of how the media dramatizes everything - and as was said, Yahoo is doing worse. The Mobile Me problems affected what, 1% of users? Yet the media makes it sound like everything's gone to hell of course. I've also seen articles about how the iPhone was "doomed to fail zomg" cause of a few activation issues on launch day... right...

Vista is not bad when you have it running on the right hardware. Though that's the problem with it many are having - PC manufacturers are selling under spec'd machines that can't run it. Also Vista is a pain in the ass for people trying to build their own systems. The issues with Vista affect way more people than any problems Apple has, and I'm talking percentages, not numbers.

[Phoshi 0]

Well, KAW, you're entitled to your opinion.

But you're wrong

[metallicamaster3 0]

and it'll all come toppling down like a Jenga tower.

+1 for that analogy there.

Dude.

Any OS at school sucks.

Too right mate, back at my high school they run XP -- they don't and won't use Vista -- and even then it's horrid.

Well, KAW, you're entitled to your opinion.

But you're wrong

*sigh*

I've been tellin' him that for the longest time

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

Alright Pimpalot, I'm getting sick of your Vista bullshit. I own both XP and Vista, I'm forced to use Vista at school, learned how to use it, blah blah blah.

It's slow, unnecessary features are a mild to moderate annoyance, it's failure to deliver in terms of a GUI piss me off (like when you maximize your windows, you lose transparency, srs wtf) and it's just overall a very, very annoying operating system. XP is so much better. I honestly do not care for any of the features it offers me and I hope it's pulled off the shelves.

Once again, like the majority of Vista haters, you have provided only opinions regarding things you do not like with no facts. I don't feel like arguing with you over your opinion.

Fact: I have had Vista Home Premium for fourteen months.

Fact: Vista uses RAM depending on how much you have available and loosens it up when needed. This amount is usually 25% when you're not running applications.

Fact: Most of my internet time is spent on shady sites and in fourteen months I have had no malware in Vista.

Fact: In XP if an application freezes up it takes XP along with it. In Vista if an application freezes up Vista kills the process.

Fact: In fourteen months I have never had a BSoD in Vista, or any type of system crash.

Fact: Vista's search is ridiculously faster than XP's, and takes less time to get to.

Fact: It has been my experience that Vista outperforms XP if the Basic theme is used.

Fact: I detested Vista when I first bought this computer, so I tried to dual-boot XP with it. XP did not work and the drivers were unavailable.

Fact: I dual booted between fresh installs of XP and Vista on my lower-end PC (1.8GHz Pentium M, 1GB RAM, integrated GPU) and later deleted the XP partition because Vista outperformed it.

Fact: If you don't like UAC or the other features in Vista, you can turn them off.

Opinion: I'll take Aero's lack of maximized transparency any day over XP's shitty Fisher-Price-esque theme.

Oh, and for the record I don't care if you're sick of my Vista bullshit. Have a nice day.

Snow Leopard, which I've heard, Snow Leopard will just update it's visual style, no apps or system update.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/

I honestly have no idea where you got that information from. They're mostly focusing on performance and stability related issues.

There are however some GUI changes in 10.6 Server. They've brought a rounded menubar back, the new dock is black, and I believe they changed the scrollbars. I'm not sure if this will be in the non-Server edition though.

[KAWSquared 0]

Eh, too lazy to read all those boring facts. Vista still sucks.

You can call me a fanboy or whatever, I'm not saying Leopard is any better because I haven't used it.

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

Eh, too lazy to read all those boring facts. Vista still sucks.

No offense, but that right there proves that you are an ignorant person.

[KAWSquared 0]

Lol bro, I use both XP and Vista and see no benefits from upgrading. There's nothing there.

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

You may not necessarily see them but they're there, under the hood. People who upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6 in the future will not see a difference either, but the structure of 10.6 should be much better than it's predecessor.

Vista is just so much more convenient IMO. Every time I have to use XP now I feel a lot less productive. Same goes with comparing OS X to Vista, I feel like I'm actually getting stuff done in OS X.

[metallicamaster3 0]

No offense, but that right there proves that you are an ignorant person.

So that's 2...

[evilmnky204 0]

You've provided nothing as a counterargument except for saying that you're lazy. Pimpalot has you on all the points, and is pretty much correct. Those 'boring facts' are exactly the reason why Vista is overall, an upgrade. School PC's will run it like crap, obviously. The fact that you specifically call out that when you minimize a window, it's not transparent is pretty stupid if that's a big concern to you. There are really quick hacks to change that.

[Sir Pimpalot 0]

Eh, thanks guys but there's really no need to gang up on him.

[KAWSquared 0]

Lol, it's ok. I could care less what Josh has to say. As correct as Pimpalot might be, It doesn't matter to me. I just think Vista offers me nothing. And Peter, how hypocritical of you.